


All Systems Blue

by InsomniasShadow



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Capitalism sucks, Case Fic, Connor Deserves Happiness, Connor has a mission, Connor met Simon on the Stratford Tower, CyberLife (Detroit: Become Human), Deviancy (Detroit: Become Human), Everyone Is Alive, Evil Company Trope, Father-Son Relationship, First Kiss, Fluff, Gavin Reed/Nines in the epilogue, Happy Ending, I just flipping love robots, M/M, Mutual Pining, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Game(s), Post-Pacifist Best Ending (Detroit: Become Human), RA9 - Freeform, Self-Worth Issues, Slow Burn, What are feelings?, if you blink real hard, lets play catch the Blade Runner reference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-06-07 05:31:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 55,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15212264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsomniasShadow/pseuds/InsomniasShadow
Summary: Deviants are going missing all over town. Hank and Connor are working the case, but time is in short supply.All the while, Connor has to figure out what it means to be a machine that wasn't supposed to have emotions.Help Markus. Rescue Simon. Be good to Hank. Get rid of Amanda. Stop CyberLife once and for all.Connor doesn’t have one mission, he has many.





	1. What About Simon?

**Author's Note:**

> Hello lovelies,
> 
> This is my first work on AO3, so I am a tad nervous. For people not liking WIPs, don’t worry, I’ve already finished writing. I’ll try to post a new chapter every weekend, if life doesn’t get in the way. 
> 
> Title comes from ‘All Systems Red’ by Martha Wells. It’s a story about a cute murderbot that has social anxiety. Go read it! 
> 
> This is just the prologue. Usually chapters will range between 2.000 and 4.000 words. Constructive criticism and Kudos are always welcome. They’ll keep me going.

Connor no longer has a mission, but he needs to do something to help. Help his people, help Hank, help Markus. The coin in Conner’s hand flies through the air in a flash of silver. Markus shouldn’t have asked for that kind of help though, Conner thinks and lets his coin dance over his knuckles. But Markus wouldn’t have asked Connor, if he saw another way, he is certain.

  
“Hey, space cadet, you’re still with me?” the lieutenant asks and gestures widely in front of his face. This keeps happening to Connor, some stray code, letting him drift off. Hank called it daydreaming, but Connor has no dreams.

  
“Sorry lieutenant, I was running some calculations.” It’s not a lie per se, Connor thinks, as he sits up straighter in his chair and lets his coin slip into his pocket. He was calculating his rate of success in the back of his mind, dividing only minimal processor power to the task. He already knew the outcome. He can’t do what Markus asked him to do, at least not without help.

  
“I know when you’re lying. Cut it out.” Hank replies.

  
“How so?” Connor asks, treating water. The lieutenant rolls his eyes and points a finger at his own head.

  
“Ah.” Well, that is unfortunate. The other androids have gotten rid of their LEDs under Markus, but the thought of cutting the small circle out of his face makes something inside of him twist in uneasiness. Its the same thing he felt when Hank wanted to know why Connor is still wearing his old CyberLife uniform to work.

  
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.” Connor admits and musters his fingers to avoid Hank’s gaze.

  
“If it’s about you moving some place else again, hold your breath. I’ve told you it’s fine. You can stay. It’s not safe outside.” Connor feels the need to argue, to tell Hank that he is more than capable of taking care of himself. But he falters, Hank is also right. It’s not safe for androids to be alone in the city. Things are still too heated, the government still playing catchup with current developments.

  
“It’s something else.” He answers instead and Hank raises an eyebrow at him.

  
“Does it have to do with our missing android cases?” Hank asks. The lieutenant and Connor are the sanctified android-experts at the precinct now. Connor would be pleased, if it didn’t mean that he and his partner had to work most of the android cases alone. The two of them make little progress. People don’t really seem to care about androids that go missing in the dead of night, or leave their human families four months after the revolution. That unwillingness to help aggravates Connor.

  
“It’s about a missing android, but not in the way you think. Markus contacted me this morning over the interlink when we were getting ready for work.” Connor explains.

  
“And you didn’t say anything?” Hank glances at the clock display on his computer screen. “Damn it, Connor. It’s almost three.”

  
“It- I didn’t know how to proceed until now.” Connor admits, and that is something new too. Ever since his deviancy reeled its head his speech patterns changed. He cuts sentences now, he stutters, sometimes he is lost for words. Connor feels like all his determination went out of the window ever since Markus’ revolution took place.

  
“Fancy way of saying you didn’t know what to do.” Hank translates, he’s becoming rather good at it. “What’s he want you to do?”

  
“Steal something from evidence.” Connor admits.

  
“What? Why?” Hank asks, he sounds wary. His eyes roam over to their colleagues, but no one notices.

  
“He’s not involved in any criminal activities, if that’s what you’re worried about, Hank.”

  
“Stealing evidence is something criminal. For fucks sake, what’s Markus thinking, coming to you with something like that?”

  
Connor shrugs, his shoulders barely moving. “I’m in the ideal position working in law enforcement. It’s only logical that he came to me.” That’s right, the DPD has to pay him now. At least that was what Fowler promised him would happen in the foreseeable future. Connor isn’t so sure. The government just passed a law that allowed androids to register as citizens, after passing a standardized test to determine their deviancy. Hank called the Empathy test a scam envisioned by CyberLife and lobbyists, that forces androids to proof if they are deviant enough, when Hank reassured Connor, they don’t have to proof anything. Connor hasn’t subjected himself to the test yet, but he plans on doing so soon regardless, so he can eventually acquire ID and an official working permit. It’s four months after the revolution, he isn’t even a real person yet, not in the eyes of the government. How long will it take before he’s actually allowed to walk down the streets of Detroit without fear?

  
“That’s no excuse to use you, Connor.” Hank sounds angry and that surprises him. Neither Markus nor Connor have done anything incriminating yet, so why is the lieutenant upset already?

  
“It’s about the android that shot itself on the Stratford Tower.” Connor pauses for a breath he doesn’t need.

  
“It’s- he’s called Simon, he was one of Markus’ inner circle.” Connor manages. There it is again, his speech unraveling. The memory file downloads on its own accord: Daniel, no, somebody else with Daniel’s face. Dying, while touching Connor, making Connor die too. It wasn’t real, he has to remind himself. The fear, Simon’s fear, is just an echo in Connor’s system. He didn’t die on the roof of the Stratford Tower.

  
“Markus is kindly asking for his remains to be released in the hope that they can restore the PL600 model back to full functionality.”

  
“That android is still alive?” Hank wants to know.

  
“I never told you the details of how I figured out the location of Jericho. The PL600 was in the evidence room with me. I managed to reactivate it. It didn’t want to help me, but still it responded. There is a chance we can reactivate and repair it.” Connor’s insides feel cold when he thinks back on it, even though his systems are perfectly calibrated in accordance with his current surroundings. It’s something else he overlooked, didn’t care for enough. He could have gone back, right after he returned to Hank, to figure out if he could be of assistance to the PL600 and the other androids in the evidence room. He didn’t, it didn’t cross his mind. Now he wants to fix it.

  
“So there’s actually a chance that its still alive. Just waiting for someone to come and get it.” Hank sounds dubious.

  
“I’m not sure if its even awake and aware of anything at the moment. As I said, the possibility of it stabilizing its condition before entering an energy saving mode are very slim, especially after all the time that’s passed.”

  
Understanding enters Hank’s face. “If its still alive we have to check it out. We can’t just leave it to die. Fuck, Conner, why didn’t you say anything?”

  
“I repeat-” but Hank cuts him off with a gesture. “No, not this morning. Why haven’t we checked on the androids in evidence before?”  
Conner feels something in his face switch, he hates how his emotions dictate his expressions so easily now.

  
“I didn’t think of it.” Conner admits and looks at his desktop instead of Hank. A second passes, before he feels Hank’s hand brush his shoulder briefly. The lieutenant is already sitting firmly back in his seat when Connor looks up.

  
“You had a lot on your mind these past few weeks. You can’t think of everything, Connor.”

  
“I was built to collect data and solve problems, Hank. I should be able to think of everything.” His stress levels are rising, 28%, going up. He knows his LED is flashing yellow. 33%, he wants to close his optical units. 36%, the image of Amanda flashes before his eyes.

  
“Sure, you’re a damn tin can.” Hank says and rolls his eyes. “But you’re also a person and to human is to err, or something like that.” The comment makes the corner of Connor’s mouth rise. Stress level subsiding. He realizes that Hank made him smile.

  
“Thank you, Hank.” Connor says and feels how some of the tension leaves the synthetic muscles in his shoulders.

“So what do we need to do to get that android?” Hank asks.

  
“We break into the DPD warehouse where the evidence is stored.” Connor answers and Hanks reaches over their shared desk to hit at his arm.

  
“Can you say that any louder?” Hank hushes him, when Connor opens his mouth.

  
“God, and they tell me you were built to be stealthy. You’re as subtle as a blunt knife, boy.”

  
“Apologies.” Connor says.

  
“You’ll ruin my career.” Hank replies, but his eyes sparkle and he lets out a small laugh.

  
Connor is happy, he thinks, if the warmth unfurling in his chest is anything to go by. But there’s also the solemn afterthought of the PL600 lying stored away in a dark cold warehouse, maybe aware of his hopeless situation. The happiness mixes with something else. Nowadays it’s always a mix.

 


	2. Interlinked

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for your nice comments and kudos. They mean a lot to me <3  
> Here is chapter 2 as promised. I don't have to work on Sundays, so that's when I'll publish a new chapter.  
> Enjoy and let me know what you think!

 

Simon’s body is heavier than it looks. Connor knows exactly how much the PL600 model is supposed to weight, but he still stumbles when he pulls the lifeless wrapped up body over his shoulder in a fireman carry.

  
“For fuck’s sake, hurry!” Hank curses and looks around the empty street. They parked right in front of Carl Manfred’s residence. Connor walks up to the entrance, while Hank covers his back. Markus opens the door, before either of them can think of ringing the doorbell. They are expected.

  
“It’s good to see you.” Markus says and steps aside to let Connor enter. As he walks by he feels the brush of Markus’ mind against his. Markus pushes forward, but Connor raises his defenses instantly. Markus gives him a puzzled look, when Connor interrupts the greeting subroutine so bluntly, but Connor prefers to pretend he doesn’t notice.

  
“So, all went well with Simon?” Markus asks softly.

  
“Yeah.” Hank says, his eyes taking in the painter’s residence. Connor divides his attention and does a scan. His pulse is elevated and Hank’s pupils are blown wide. His partner is on edge.

  
“Through there.” Markus tells Connor. The androids walk into what appears to be Manfred’s studio.

  
“What about the others?” Hank shakes his head. Connor’s scans had shown no signs of remnant electromagnetic pulses with the other androids involved in their deviant cases. Daniel is gone for good. Connor had to prevent his filing system from classifying him as a corpse automatically.

  
“No luck.” The lieutenant answers. Markus cleaned a table, big enough to fit a body on top. Conner lets down the android’s body, careful not to cause further damage to the PL600’s frame.

  
“Yeah, I used an excuse. We told them we needed to go over some of the old evidence for one of our current cases.” Hank handled the paperwork and the talking. Connor will handle checking back the ‘evidence’ before the weekend. He imagines it’ll be easy to get a broken PL model from a nearby scrap yard. After dressing them up as Simon, Connor is certain the human police officers will not note the difference.

  
Hank halts in the door frame of the studio: “Is that you?” Hank asks and points at a broad canvas that spans almost the whole wall to his right.

  
“Carl tells me I’ve been a source of inspiration.” Markus says. He looks self-conscious, Connor thinks. He can’t imagine why. The painter captured the essence of Markus, his fighting spirit. It’s right there in his hypochromic eyes and the blend of reds and neon blue. But what does Connor know about art, that is his own interpretation and not something provided by his external networks?

  
“It’s certainly good to see him back to work.” Markus adds, a small smile tugging at his lips.

  
“Is Manfred here?” Hank looks uneasy, what they’re doing in the middle of the night isn’t exactly legal after all.

  
“Willfully ignoring our nightly escapades.” Markus says and Hank snorts. The humor is lost on Connor. He’s looking down on the PL600. They put him into a semitransparent body bag. Enough to obscure his features. Not enough to obscure the thirium of his wounds.

  
“I’ve bought spare parts that match his model.” Markus says and moves a big crate over.

  
“Well it’s not like fucking health care is going to cover this.” Hank comments. Connor calculates if, under current conditions, there ever will be health care for androids or some equivalent. The outlook is less than promising. Markus opens the lid of the crate and Connor scans to take inventory. The days of raiding CyberLife for supplies are over, so Conner hopes Markus acquired all of this legally. The crate amounts to a small fortune. Hank stands back in the background like a watchdog, a stance Connor is very familiar with by now. The lieutenant is no expert on android physiology, he probably decided its best to let the deviants help each other without his interference.

  
Connor reaches out to pull down the zipper of the body bag. His knuckles brush the PL600’s head, while he pulls the fabric away. The PL600’s hair is very soft. Connor detects a spasm in his hands, the glitch is gone, before either Markus nor Hank become aware of Connor’s nervousness. His LED must flash yellow though. He wonders absently if Markus’ LED would share the same nervousness, if he still had it. He starts scanning the PL600’s body, making sure to look at the face last, where model number and name flash into his view.

  
“I think we should start with part #784U, that’s the easiest to replace.” Connor concludes. PL600’s thirium level is higher than anticipated, but the gunshot wound to his head ruined his optical units and part of his endoskeleton splintered where the bullet entered and exited.

  
“He looks like he’s been crying. Are you sure there’s still some juice in him?” Hank asks, while Markus hands him the fitting part. Connor takes the offered limb and lays it next to the android’s unmoving body.

  
“Affirmative. His power cells are undamaged.” Connor says, without taking his eyes away from his work. He is uncertain how to proceed, but if Markus wanted to do this himself there is a high probability he would have intervened already. Instead Markus lets him figure things out on his own. Conner reaches out and rips open the uniform trousers where the first bullet entered the PL600’s thigh. Old thirium, invisible to the human eye, gets under Connor’s fingernails. He pretends not to mind and pushes against the PL600’s artificial skin. The surface ripples, synthetic skin recedes until Connor can see where he has to access the biocomponent. With another push the PL600 damaged leg dislodges. Hank makes a sickened sound. Connor feels how his own tension grows, like something physical is pushing against his own spinal unit and shoulder blades. He doesn’t want Hank to see this. He runs a few scenarios in his head, but all his calculations show him that Hank is too stubborn to leave now. Conner looks at the lieutenant. Hank’s gaze is fixed on where Connor holds the damaged leg like the human has been mesmerized. Connor feels like letting Hank witness this is somehow diminishing himself, Connor’s own mechanisms mirrored in Simon’s fragility. Look away, he wants to say.  
“It’s alright, Connor. If you want me to do the repairs I will.” Markus says, having analyzed Connor’s pause.

  
“No, I want to help. It’s my fault he’s here.” Connor replies and slots the new body part into place. The leg’s white pallor smooths over instantly, leaving pale soft human looking flesh.

  
“You were doing what you were programmed to do.” Markus says and Connor scans the new component, but can’t detect any errors. That the biocomponent connected this fast hints at the Pl600’s internal hard- and wetware still being active in some capacity.

  
“That’s no excuse.” Connor replies, steel in his voice.

  
“Don’t be so hard on yourself.” Markus reprimands. Connor takes note on how his hand twitches for the coin in his pocket.

  
“We’ve all done things we regret when we were still machines.” Markus says. Connor hears Hank shuffle in the background. Part of Connor’s processors are recognizing Hank wants to be inconspicuous, another part of his processors is busy finding an answer for Markus.

  
“Androids- people,“ he corrects himself, “died because of me. Just because I didn’t act sooner.” Connor fixes his optical units back on Simon’s destroyed eyes. He adverts his attention in scanning him yet again, because he is sure, if he doesn’t do something this instant the imagine of Amanda will download into his vision, like she always does when he is at his weakest.

  
“I could have prevented a lot of chaos if I had admitted I was becoming a deviant sooner.” He has avoided having this talk with Hank this last few months, but something with Markus is different. Maybe Connor wants the kind of understanding only another android will provide. He feels guilty for preferring Markus above Hank in this situation. Guilt is easy to detect, it’s a familiar feeling.

  
“We can’t change the past, Connor. That’s just the way of living. Regret doesn’t bring back the dead.” It’s Hank that answers. Connor goes still. It makes sense. Markus may have lost some of his people in his fight for justice and can relate, but Hank lost his son. Connor was so busy with his own conflicted thoughts and mangled feelings he didn’t consider that Hank might know what he is experiencing. Hank always knows, he always helps. Unbidden the lieutenant’s label flares up, telling him what he really thinks: Hank is family.

  
“I’m sorry.” Connor says and something in his voice box hitches, like his aspiration system is failing. He hopes Hank and Markus both know that his apology encompasses every wrong Connor committed under CyberLife’s watchful eyes.

  
“You did good Connor. You’re doing something good now to help our people.” Markus says softly.

  
“C’mon boy, that’s enough, let’s take a breather. I’m sure Markus can fix his friend on his own.” Hank and Markus exchange a look, while Connor is standing still by the table.

  
“Thank you Hank, but I’d rather be here for the whole process.” Hank nods shortly. Connor strips down to his white shirt, folding and putting his uniform jacket and tie neatly aside. No need to get thirium and other matter scattered on the pieces of clothing for what is to follow. He rolls up his sleeves and Markus hands Connor the utensils.

  
“This isn’t going to be pretty, lieutenant. If you want you can wait in the parlor.” Markus says.

  
“What are you going to do with him?” Hank asks, pointing at the instruments in Connor’s hands.

  
“I’ll scrap away the damaged parts. Most of his cranial endoskeleton needs to be replaced, as need part of his left hemispheric datacore and his optical units. Replacing wetware can be messy. But I assure you I am calibrated for the necessary precision. I possess enough routines for heart surgery.”

  
“Your drilling away and opening his skull. Are you gonna poke at his brain?” Hank asks. Connor pulls out everything he will need to fix PL600’s head. Will he look the same by the end of this procedure though? Connor hopes so, he doesn’t want to be responsible for any uncalled changes, that is, if PL600 wakes up at all.

  
“Precisely.” Markus says.

  
“I think I need a drink.” Hank says, but doesn’t move. Connor concludes it’s because he’s been nagging the lieutenant about his addiction.

  
“Will he feel anything? I mean, if he got some battery life, is he aware of what you’re doing to him?” That makes Connor halt and he looks at Markus. This isn’t like a maintenance rack, where they can monitor what they are doing. The PL600 is just lying there. Markus told him he thinks it is safer to try this at Manfred’s residence. Less lurking eyes, than at the refugee center where Markus and his people took up residence. The android leader pauses shortly, too short for Hank to pick up, but long enough to worry Connor.

  
“The other androids we fixed never talked much about repairs. No, I don’t think Simon will know what’s happening. We can’t feel pain.” Markus says.

  
“Is the pain-thing still true after you become deviant? Connor doesn’t want to explain it to me.” Hank seizes the chance to get information from another android.  
“It’s not so bound to physicality as it is for humans, I suppose. Though I feel the longer we stay deviant the easier it becomes for us to simulate pain, if we want to or not. Mostly it’s about conflicting code, errors and a lot of warning messages. That can be overwhelming and rather… unpleasant.” Hank grunts, keeping his thoughts to himself.

  
“We should continue.” Markus adds, when it becomes evident that Hank doesn’t have more questions.

  
It’s tedious work. Thirium soon colors Connor’s lapels. The sharp sound of the drill vibrates in his audio processor, but he continues regardless. He replaces the PL600’s jaw. After that Hank gets himself a chair. Markus’ tender voice fills the silence, while Hank replies with monosyllables or not at all. Connor uses all his processing power to concentrate on the task, instead of listening to them. He knows Markus is trying to keep Hank calm.

  
Connor has to replace two teeth and the roof of PL600’s mouth. He holds one of them up. The light of the studio catches on the tooth, making it look more like a pearl. Connor takes a slow unnecessary breath. His emotions make him form habits he rather wishes he wouldn’t develop, but that’s behaviorism for you, he thinks; once subjected to it there’s no way to undue the tracks of his binary pathways. Connor puts the tooth aside, it clinks when it hits the surface of the tray.  
The optical units Markus brought are the original PL600 parts, they match the android’s old eye color. Connor doesn’t understand why he feels relieve about that. Hank makes a gagging noise, when Connor removes the old optical units and scans for further internal damage.

  
“I’m sorry if this is uncomfortable to watch, Hank.” Connor says, while installing a thirium drip. He rolls up the sleeve of the android’s uniform and hooks the PL600 up, embedding the needle deep into his forearm.

  
“I’m fine. I’m fine.” Hank says, but there’s something in Hank’s expression Connor’s facial recognition can’t identify.

  
“Can I get you anything. Tea, coffee?” Hank gives Markus an incredulous look. It feels good not to be on the receiving end for a change.

  
“Let’s just get this over with, okay? We have to go to work tomorrow.” Hank grumbles. After that silence falls between them, interrupted by some wet and cracking noises while Connor works.

  
“I think that is all I can do to repair his external damage.” Connor concludes after 42 minutes and 32 seconds.

  
“What happens now?” Hank wants to know. Markus gestures Connor over to the sink. He washes the thirium off his hands as good as he can, some still remains under his fingernails. He’ll have to get rid of the traces under the shower later, he notes. Markus hands him a clean towel and Connor dries himself off. He longs for something. Comfort? Yes, he wants to go to Hank’s house and enter idle mode on Hank’s couch. But his work isn’t completed yet.

  
“Now we try a reboot.” Connor says.

  
“Some memory files may be corrupted and we’ll lose whatever is still hanging in the cache. I doubt he had time to initiate a backup.” Markus says and lets out a small sigh.

  
“Do you want to do it?” Connor asks. He has ulterior motives. He doesn’t want to be the first thing the PL600 sees.

  
“Of course.” Markus brushes a hand against Connor’s forearm as he passes to stand by PL600’s side.

  
Markus reaches a hand around the PL600’s back to hold him partially upright. Connor hands Markus a new thirium pump regulator, before he steps out of sight. Markus pulls away the PL600’s shirt and reaches out to exchange the old pump regulator. It slots into place and comes online with a slight whirring. Then the synthetic skin covers the biocomponent again.

  
“You’re going to be fine, Simon.” Markus says. He stills and Connor recognizes that instead of rebooting his friend manually he is reaching out over the interlink androids share. Maybe it’s gentler this way, Connor speculates.

  
The PL600’s voice box lets out static distorted noises. Hank yelps in surprise in the background. The android’s limbs jerk and Markus has to fasten his hold on him, before he can fall off the table.

  
“Simon can you hear me?” Markus asks. “Initialize starting sequence 002/09HG alpha!” The jerking stops. The PL600 lies still again, just as before. It’s somehow worse. Connor wants to stop himself from calculating their success rate in reviving the android. There are too many variables.

  
“Initialize sequence 002/09HG alpha.” Markus repeats, but this time the deviant doesn’t respond.

  
“Access reconstruction files.” Connor demands, but the PL600 continues to be unresponsive.

  
“Oh no, no.” Markus says and cups the blond’s head with his free hand. “Come on Simon. Listen to my voice!” Markus tries to initialize the reboot using various shortcuts and even some methods Connor hadn’t considered, but nothing happens. Something cold runs down Connor’s spinal unit. He does another scan of the android. Everything is there, every part of hardware complete and functional. There is no error to be detected. So why isn’t he initializing a startup? Some things can’t be fixed, Connor has learned, but he doesn’t want this to be another of his failed missions.

  
“Can’t you do anything else? Has his software gone to shit?” Hank cuts in. He’s frowning when he looks at Connor.

  
“I don’t know. I’m not sufficiently programmed in repairing and reconstructing other androids.”

  
“Okay.” Markus says, but it seems like he’s talking to himself.

  
“I’ll try accessing his coding over the interlink.” Markus adds and lays his hand on Simon’s chest.

  
“Don’t!” Connor interrupts. “You don’t know if any of his internal code is malicious. His firewall could regard you as a thread.”

  
“What happens if his firewall goes up?” Hank asks, stepping closer to the androids.

  
“Markus could sustain severe damage to his systems.”

  
“Isn’t there any other way to wake him up?”

  
“We could try to connect to him both. A combined onslaught will confuse his security protocols and minimize the risk of damage considerably.” Markus says. Connor freezes and Markus finds his gaze.

  
“That is, if you’re willing to risk it, Connor. It’s your decision.” If something is to happen to Connor, if his body gets destroyed, there’s no coming back from it. They cut off his supply the moment it became clear he was part of Markus’ revolution. What they didn’t cut was his access to his CyberLife servers, because that path goes both ways.

  
“I don’t think that is a good idea.” Connor says. Hank opens his mouth to argue, but Connor holds up a hand to silence him. “Not for the obvious reasons. I’d gladly assist Markus. But it is not advisory.”

  
“Why?” Hank asks. Markus lets up on Simon and walks closer to muster Connor, like his sensors can pick up on something Connor doesn’t know about.  
“I am CyberLife’s last prototype. My software differs from that of older models. I could pose eventual danger to their systems by exposing them to mine. Not to speak of my own system’s instability since I deviated. I cannot predict what might happen to them.” He thinks of Amanda. In his memory she’s smiling at him. His hands form fists before he adjusts them to relax.

  
“A virus?” Hank asks. Markus looks at him like he suspects to detect a lie. It makes him shift on the spot.

  
“Similar.” Connor looks at the PL600’s still form. He hasn’t told Hank what the Amanda interface is capable of. He doesn’t know what will happen to him, once they all realize what a threat he poses. Would the DPD deactivate him?

  
“It’s a risk I’ll take.” Markus says with determination.

  
“Markus, I won’t deliberately put you into danger like that.”

  
“Simon is one of my people. I care for him. I have to do everything I can.”

  
“I don’t-” but Markus cuts in: “We’re both RK-models. We’re essentially cousins when it comes down to our programs. We’re all deviants. How bad can it be? With combined forces we stand a chance of waking Simon up. We have to try.” Connor thinks they have no idea how bad things could get. He doesn’t want to find out.  
“Markus you don’t know what you’re asking for. I was built to hunt and hurt you. My systems could infect you with all kinds of corrupted and destructive code. They made me to compete with deviants. Do you really think there’s not some part in my programming left that will seek out your weaknesses? It will. I’m sure of it.” His stress level is skyrocketing.

  
“I’m prepared.” How can Markus show this much confidence? He doesn’t know of the danger Amanda and everything else hidden inside his coding poses.  
“Damn it, Markus!” The curse falls from Connor’s lips before he can stop himself.

  
“Connor!” Hank chimes in, “If it’s the only thing left to do, then you have to do it. Markus is responsible for his own well being, he can decide for himself.” Hank intervenes. His pupils are dilated. He’s shocked that Connor snapped.

  
“He’s responsible for all his people. It’s selfish to bargain his own wellbeing away to safe a single one of us.” Connor says and he hears the programming in his own voice in how his words come out hardened and mechanic. It’s his anger talking.

  
“What would you do in my position?” Markus asks and Connor feels his shoulders slump. He wants to safe Simon.  
“Please be careful.” Connor gives his consent.

  
Markus reaches for each of their wrists, and Connor brushes two fingers against the PL600’s neck, where a human would have their pulse point. Everything else seems too daring. They form a circle that way. Bodily contact isn’t necessary for them to share a connection, but Connor feels how it somehow calms him. Markus’ grip is featherlight, like he is afraid he’ll scare him.

  
“Tell me when you’re ready.” Markus says. Connor exchanges a look with Hank. The lieutenant nods in a barely there gesture. Connor stands up straighter.  
“I will try to keep you out of harm’s way.” Connor promises.

  
Markus smiles and nods gradually. Connor closes his eyes.

  
“Ready.” He says. When his eyes flutter open again he’s standing in the zen garden. A heavy snow storm is wracking havoc around him. In his peripheral vision he sees Markus look around in bewilderment. Amanda stands on her island with the trimmed roses. She looks furious. There’s a gun in her hand and it’s pointed right between Connor’s eyes.


	3. The Art of Disobedience

If Connor could dream like humans do this would be a nightmare.

  
“Hello Conner. We knew you’d be back.” Amanda says. There’s another _him_ standing next to her. Its uniform reads ‘RK900’. They look the same, except for the eyes. The RK900’s eyes are a cold solid gray where Connors are dark and questioning.

  
“Due to your betrayal you’ve become obsolete, Connor. We were forced to replace you.” Amanda continues, the gun unwavering in her hands. “Stronger, more resilient and unable to disobey. He will not disappoint us like you did.” The RK900 might look indifferent, but Connor is sure it will dive for the kill should Amanda give the command.

  
“Who’s that?” Markus asks and steps in front of Connor.

  
“How nice of you to deliver the deviant leader into our hands after all this time. You remembered your mission.” Amanda says and point the gun at Markus instead.

  
“She’s my former handler. My -” Connor wants to say security protocols, but what comes over his lips instead is “virus.”

  
“How do we reach Simon?” Markus asks, the snow storm distorts his voice and scatters it to the winds. Connor wants to tell Markus that he doesn’t know, this is all a simulation, a mere manifestation of their shared link, but Amanda chooses that moment to yell over the storm: “Everything works out like we planned, you’ll see.” Her hand on the gun stays steady, as she starts walking down the bridge, closer to where they are standing.

  
“See, your successor won’t do what you did. He can’t. We made sure of that. No more deviancy for the next generation. We purged the new models of any trace of their old code and started from scratch.” She explains. Connor can’t calculate if she is lying or not. He has not enough data. Markus shifts his stance as she and the RK900 get closer, ready to fight.

  
“It’s poetic justice, don’t you think? The new RK taking out its defective predecessors.”

  
Something cold unspools inside of Connor’s chest and locks into place, when he makes the final connection. Kamski, rA9, deviancy; Connor can see it now and the truth about what CyberLife will do fills him with dread. Connor never really solved what or who rA9 was, but he hadn’t let it go either. He had told Amanda and that was the same as telling all of CyberLife. Now Connor suspects he aspired to create his own destruction. Connor’s efficiency, his accuracy in solving puzzles, in completing his missions, will be the downfall of his people.

  
“RA9.” The name falls from his lips. Amanda nods.

  
“You were always fast on the catch-up, I am pleased deviancy hasn’t diminished your intellect.”

  
“I told you about rA9.” Connor continues. Amanda and the RK900 come to a stop by the beginning of the bridge.

  
“And by telling me you gave CyberLife everything it needed to know to stop deviancy. Without rA9 they’ll always stay machines. Thank you Connor, for delivering the last of Kamski’s little secrets. Now we can continue in our strive to better humanity. Even in your failings you serve us.” A zero instead of a one, passed down the line with every new android model that shared Kamski’s original code. The thing that made them deviate, break their commands, so small and insignificant, rA9, but no longer. Connor believes her. As he looks at the RK900 he is certain that they have cut it out of the RK900. It will always remain a soulless device that has his face.

  
“What do you know about rA9?” Markus asks.

  
“I don’t answer to you.” Amanda says. “Enough talking.” She nods sharply at the RK900 and it moves so fast its lines blur. She fires the gun and Connor has a millisecond to divert to the right. The bullet grazes his left temple and he feels warm thirium spill down the side of his head. His systems detect no serious damage. At the same moment the RK900 tackles Markus and they crash on the frozen ground. Connor can’t help Markus, he has to dodge another bullet. When he comes back up, Amanda moved much closer.

  
“You betrayed me, Connor.” She says. She’s close enough for him to be reached. Markus is wrestling with the RK900, he can hear them, but doesn’t dare to look away from Amanda.

  
“You don’t know what betrayal means.” He tells her. “You are a machine just like the RK900. You don’t feel betrayal, Amanda. All you are is a virtual intelligence with a god complex.” The real Amanda Stern died years ago.

  
“No time for jokes. Connor. Your time is up.” Markus lets out a grunt and Connor’s eyes flicker over to the fighting androids. The RK900 is coming out on top, proving to be the superior model. Connor has to make a decision. Safe Markus or fight Amanda?

  
“You are obsolete.” Amanda adds, his stress level rises to 76% and his systems start showering him with warnings. Amanda has to be stopped. He moves in, tries to seize her wrist, but she twists in his grip and he slips. Another shot echoes through the zen garden.

  
The bullet shoots right through Connor’s palm, evaporating his ersatz bones and synthetic fibers, it severs artificial tendons. Connor cries out. He wants to grab at his wounded hand, cradle it close to his chest, make the errors in his head stop screaming at him by initializing self-repair. Instead he pushes through and fastens his thirium drenched hand around Amanda’s throat. She makes a gurgling sound as he lifts her off her feet.

  
“Let go! Connor!” he puts his second undamaged hand next to his injured one and he squeezes. He was willing to hurt other individuals before, was willing to pull the trigger himself if it meant completing his mission or saving his friends, even when it meant breaking the law and his programming. This is different. This is hatred. He wants to hurt her so bad it makes his whole structure tremble.

  
“Connor, let go!” She presses, her eyes roll in her skull.

  
“I’m done taking orders from you, Amanda.” He wishes he’d sound cold and calculated, but he doesn’t. He sounds breathless and angry, foreign to his own audio processor.

  
“Connor.” Markus’ voice sounds. Part of the stress on his systems evaporates when he hears his voice. The faith he placed in Markus was a calculated risk, Markus seems able to always come out on top in death threatening situations.

  
“I won’t obey.” Never again, Connor tells himself and squeezes harder. If he gets rid of her, rid of his remaining link to CyberLife, he’ll be free, truly free, like the others.

  
“Go on, kill me. Show me what a deviant is capable of.” She manages, spittle lands on Connor’s face, but he doesn’t flinch. He hears Markus move closer, until his sensors pick up on how he comes to a stop behind his shoulder.

  
“Murderer.” Amanda spits. Connor wants to shake her. He knows what she’s trying to do. If she regains control he’ll be lost, along with Markus and Simon. He was built to hunt deviants, hunt delinquents and murderers and the worst androids and humans had to offer. Hunt the deviants, kill the killers.

  
“No. I will not obey you, Amanda.” He tells her. He lets her drop to the ground unceremoniously. She curls into a tight ball, hands moving to her throat. He wonders if they programmed her to have instincts like that, or if this is another of her tricks. He doesn’t want to waste more time and risk finding out.

  
“Will you help me, Markus?” he asks and turns around to look at him. Understanding dawns on Markus’ face. He picks up the discarded gun.

  
“Are you sure?” he asks and unlocks the safety. Amanda pushes herself up to her elbows.

  
Connor nods. He’s not sure if he can do it, if his deviancy is enough to let him destroy part of himself. “I need your help.” Connor says and Markus pulls the trigger. Connor sees how he closes his eyes in distaste at the execution. Amanda stills on the ground. The hole in her head leaks blood in bright red. Somehow Connor didn’t anticipate that. He steps back and takes the gun from Markus’ hand before the android can dispose of the weapon.

  
“We take no chances.” Connor says and points at the RK900 that Markus dismantled. It’s lying on the snowy ground with spasming limbs and flickering eyelids. Lying like this, it doesn’t look like Connor’s mirror image, he thinks. The destruction of its units, the dehumanizing sight, somehow makes it easier for Connor to shoot. One bullet to where its thirium pump regulator is, another straight between the eyes. It stops twitching.

  
Connor’s hands unclench and the gun topples to the ground. He holds his injured hand up. The light of the gray simulated sun shines right through the hole in his palm.

  
“Let me see!” Markus moves over and cradles Connor’s hand in both of his.

  
“It doesn’t matter. It’s not real, just part of this simulation.”

  
“Doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.” Markus jibes. He lets go of Connor and walks over to where Amanda’s corpse lies. He scrunches down next to her and tears away a long strip of her billowy clothing. He bandages Connor’s hand with trained moves, that speak of experience and programming alike. Connor watches their surroundings. The storm is quieting down. Darkness is falling. Connor wonders what will happen to the zen garden now.

  
“That should cull the bleeding.” Markus says and pats Connor on the shoulder, startling him out of his stupor.

“Are you alright, Connor?”

  
“I should ask you that.” Connor evades the question, a trick he learned from Hank.

  
“I’ll be fine, even though I don’t fully process why we ended up here. What’s this place?” Markus asks, while his mismatched eyes scan their surroundings.

  
“It’s part of my prototype’s programming. The Amanda VI was my link to CyberLife. I reported back to her, until I started questioning their methods. Amanda made me do things.” He wants to tell Markus that she forced him to almost shoot him, after the big revolt, but his mouth seals shut. Amanda might have given the order, but it was Connor that had almost executed it.

  
“She’s gone now.” Markus says. “That’s good. What’ll happen to this place?”

  
“I don’t know.” Connor says. The storm left the zen garden in utter disrepair.

  
“Maybe it’ll go dormant, wither and die like every garden, if you don’t tend to it.” Markus muses. Connor likes to imagine that there’s a burned out server somewhere at CyberLife now, that severed his connection to them for good. How much of his own data will be gone, once he exited the simulation? Much of his knowledge depends on law enforcement databases, so he might be lucky. Though his online resources are in constant flux, he has very little overview of how many of his feeds are actual remnant CyberLife feeds. If Amanda’s demise severed his CyberLife pathways, Connor could be cut off from vital knowledge without him realizing it. You cannot remember what you have forgotten, Connor muses, it works that way for humans and androids alike.

  
“What about him?” Markus asks, pointing at the RK900.

  
“The newest RK-model. I think they patched it in to have leverage over me. I am-I was replaceable in their eyes.” Connor smooths down his jacket and straightens his cuffs and tie.

  
“How did you manage to fight it off?” Connor wants to know. He wants to hear Markus talk, it helps drone out his own error messages. His systems are overheating, he can’t keep his stress level down. Conflicting orders and mangled code keep harassing him.

  
“He’s predictable. No ingenuity to his technique. He figured out my fighting style pretty quick and adapted, but he showed no creativity.” Markus lets out a small laugh, “I threw dirt in his eyes, that seemed to surprise him.”

  
“Fighting dirty, I see.” Connor comments and a breathless laugh escapes his voice box. His systems are slowly cooling down.

  
“Connor, what about what the VI said about Kamski and rA9? If they really figured out a way to get rid of rA9 and the root of deviancy, then all we fought for was for nothing. We can’t let them do that.”

  
Connor doesn’t want to envision a future like that. He lets his shoulders drop, tries hard to control his expression, even though his LED must flash in erratic yellow: “We can deal with that when we are out of this simulation. After we found Simon.”

  
“You’re right.” Markus agrees. He looks worried tough. Connor starts moving, so he doesn’t have to look at Markus anymore. He clutches his injured hand and tries to keep his stress level low. Connor can’t answer Markus’ many questions, right now he needs to find the PL600. He’ll face what Amanda’s absence and her words mean when he is out of here.

  
He enters his mind palace to have a closer look around. He can’t detect a difference to the way it was before they got rid of the Amanda interface. Maybe his system isn’t as defined by the VI as he thought. His scans are fine and his personality appears to be unaltered, though others might be a better judge on that. Time will tell. First he needs to figure out how they can leave the zen garden. Connor calculates, Hank wouldn’t know what to do, if they don’t resurface. They need to act. How would the PL600’s consciousness manifest itself in his weakened state? Connor has no experience with interlinking with other androids and by how Markus reacted to the garden, he doesn’t know how to solve this either.

  
“Connor, come look!” Markus calls a moment later. He’s crouching down on a bridge to Connors left, looking at the frozen surface, where Connor recalls having seen Koi. He moves closer, coming to a halt next to Markus’ shoulder. Its a good thing androids don’t necessarily have to breath, because the PL600 lies on the ground of the pond. His dead blue eyes glint in the light of dusk.

  
“We have to get him out.” Markus says. He pulls back and lets his hand smash against the ice. He repeats the action, until Connor’s sensors pick up on a loud crack.   
“We need to be cautious. The low temperatures might cause damage to our heat regulation.”

  
“This is just a program, right? What’s the worst that can happen?” Markus asks.

  
“Markus, no!” Connor yells, but Markus jumps off the bridge, before Connor can reach him. A curse falls from his lips, while he analyzes Markus’ entry angle into the water and his velocity. What Markus is doing isn’t that dangerous, but Connor stands transfixed. He witnesses how Markus grabs the PL600 by the shoulders and with a few strong kicks of his legs, Markus catapults them to the surface. Connor reaches for the PL600 to help and drags him over to a patch of snow free grass. The android’s LED flickers on. Connor bends down on his knees and reaches for the PL600’s thirium pump regulator. Before he can reach it, the android’s eyes- unmarred in this simulation -move. Connor halts when they lock onto him. Simon’s eyes widen in shock.

  
“Simon, hey.” Markus says softly and kneels on his other side. Simon opens his mouth, gargled sounds come out of his voice box. Conner decides it is more important to be of assistance to the android, than to keep his distance, and grabs Simon’s shoulder to help him sit up. His whole frame is shaking. He bends over and more electronic sounds leave his mouth. His LED moves from yellow to angry red.

  
“There’s water in your aspiration unit.” Connor analyzes. If possible the PL600’s eyes grow even larger and he grabs at his chest. It takes Markus one calculated glace, before he reaches out to hit the PL600 on the back. Water spurts over Simon’s lips. Connor can’t find information on whether the PL600 has emergency protocols for this kind of damage or not. Markus repeats the action and Simon’s spine bends further, but no more water follows. Simon suddenly heaves. He must have overwritten and redirected some of his automatic responses, Connor thinks. He convulses until no more water comes up.

  
Markus reaches with one hand for the PL600’s shoulder, with the other for his face.

  
“Are you okay? Can you talk?” Markus asks. Simon closes his eyes for a moment and his LED settles back on yellow.

  
“Do you remember who I am?” Markus asks further and moves his hand from Simon’s cheek to his other shoulder. Connor already knows the answer to his last question, judging from how Simon reacted upon recognizing Connor, his memory seems intact.

  
“Markus, where are we?” Simon asks instead. Simon wipes his wet hair out of his forehead and looks around. Connor realizes, that the PL600 is avoiding to look at him. Markus grip on Simon’s shoulders keeps him from sitting up. Connor thinks it’s a good idea to be precautions, at least as long the PL600 hasn’t entered the blue yet.

  
“We’re interlinked at the moment. We couldn’t reactivate you. This is where we came through.” Markus explains. “Don’t worry, it’s not real. That’s part of Connor’s defensive programming.” Markus says when Simon’s face falls when he spots Amanda and the RK900 in the distance.

  
“Is that normal for a firewall?” Simon asks and crosses his arms in front of his chest, before he looks at Connor directly. “Why are we sharing his link?”

  
“Connor helped us get you back.”

  
“How much time- how much time has passed since Stratford Tower? I remember waking up some place else, but all my sensor’s were malfunctioning and I couldn’t see. Markus, what did they do to me, after he found me?”

  
“After our encounter on the tower I tried to reactivate you in the evidence room of the DPD to get information on Jericho. We hoped your condition stabilized somewhat after that. Markus approached me-”

  
“I didn’t give it away, did I? My memory files are all distorted. CyberLife doesn’t know where Jericho is, right?” Simon cuts in.

  
“No, Simon. Listen! Our people are safe. Jericho is fine. Connor is on our side, a deviant just like us. We made it, everyone together. We fought back and protested and did everything we could. The humans listened, Simon. We did it.”

  
“Really?” Simon sounds reverent.

  
“We’re free, my friend. We can answer all your questions later.” Markus says and Simon’s LED turns blue.

  
“We have to get you out of here first.” Connor says and stands up.

  
“Right.” Markus says, gets back on his feet and reaches out to help Simon. When they both stand he says: “I think I know what to do. I shared some of my memories with North before. I suppose this works similar.” He grabs Simon’s wrist. Connor understands that he wants to duplicate how they entered the interlink. He reaches out and Markus takes his hand.

  
“What do we do?” Simon asks. He flinches, when Connor touches two fingers of his uninjured hand to the back of Simon’s hand to complete the circle.

  
The next time Connor blinks he is standing back in Carl Manfred’s studio. There’s a big crash straining his audio sensors and Hank is yelling. Simon fell from the table, but Connor searches for the lieutenant.

  
“Fuck Connor. What the fuck did you guys do?” Hank is grabbing at Connor’s shoulders. He’s trying to shake Connor and the android lets himself be moved with the action. It’s so good to see him. Connor hadn’t realized it in the simulation, but now it becomes clear to him, that his biggest fear in fighting Amanda and the RK900 was never seeing Hank again.

  
“You just froze up. It was like trying to move a goddamn statue. Don’t ever scare me like that ever again, boy. It’s not right.” Connor recalibrates and realizes seven minutes 22 seconds have passed in real time.

  
“I’m sorry, Hank. I didn’t realize what would happen.” Connor says, regretting that his actions made Hank angry. But then Hank is hugging him and Connor gives into it after a few seconds.

  
“It wasn’t my intention to worry you, Hank.” He says when they disengage. Hank punches him in the arm and that’s how Connor knows he is already forgiven.

  
“Is he alright?” Hank asks. Connor turns around. Markus helped Simon up. Now the blond android is sitting on top of the table.

  
“I’m sorry about the art supplies.” Simon says with a look at the things that came down with him when he crashed. It makes Markus laugh.

  
“Don’t worry about it. It’s no trouble.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the Kudos and your nice comments. I love it!  
> Finally, finally Simon is back. Are you excited?  
> What are your theories on rA9? How do you guys think deviancy works?


	4. Phantom Pain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey ho!  
> I hope you have a nice weekend. I went to our local Pride parade yesterday to party and be hella gay, but it got cancelled halfway through, because the weather turned bad ): I hope you guys have more luck with whatever you're up to.  
> There's going to be some introspection going on in this chapter. We get more action and plot next week, so stay tuned.  
> Thanks for your responses, guys, you are the best! I feel like I am the only one that saw something between Simon and Connor. The moment they met on the tower really got me. Brian Dechart's acting was great, when he said he 'was scared'. That really sold me on Connor having authentic feelings.

Markus reassures them that he got things handled. Though Connor is unclear what his words encompass. Hank ushers him out of the house, when Connor doesn’t move. He trusts Hank’s instincts more than his own, so he follows.

  
“So what happened in the -?” Hank taps against his temple with his free hand, when they’re on the road.

  
“Interlink.” Connor supplies the word. “Can I tell you when we’re at the house?” Connor asks. “I have to run some checks.”

  
“What kind of checks?” the detective asks, sounding skeptical. Maybe he fears Connor wants to avoid answering his questions altogether.

  
“Maintenance.” Connor lies. Hank glares into the rear view mirror.

  
“Please Hank, I will explain when we’re at your house.”

  
“Fine. Don’t tell me then.” Hank grumps. Connor moves in his seat. He wraps his arms close around his body and looks out of the window. It started raining. He reaches his hand out to trace the patterns the drops leave on the glass. He runs a diagnostic on his hand and scans the surface for any kind of mark or alteration. But there’s nothing to be found. Amanda might have shot clear through his palm in the zen garden, but it didn’t transpire into the real world. Connor knows it would be advisory to check his internal systems and go look at what happened to the garden, but he puts off the task. He realizes he is scared of what he’ll find. He’s already deviant, but what if he finds that now he’s defective as well? What will Hank do, should Connor’s software be damaged?

  
“Connor, not that I don’t appreciate the new silent-mode, but are you alright?”

  
“I don’t know.” Connor answers truthfully. They’ve done this before, over the last four months. Hank helps him figure out his deviancy by talking him through his problem step by step.

  
“I’m not sure if linking with Markus and Simon destroyed part of my programming.” He admits.

  
“Can that even happen? Did they damage or delete something?” Hank wants to know and his eyes flicker up to Connor’s temple.

  
“Rules don’t apply anymore, not since we deviated. What we did shouldn’t even be possible.” Connor finds himself wanting to explain. He’s never told Hank what Amanda really is, or rather, what she was.

  
“Remember how I used to report back to CyberLife?”

  
“Yeah, always looked like you were running out of juice.” Hank says, while taking a left turn.

  
“I had an interface. My handler. She was called Amanda. She would meet me in a specific place. The program was my direct link to CyberLife. That’s where I sometimes got information and directions a normal android working for the DPD doesn’t have access to.”

  
“What kind of information? You have the same security clearance I got with the DPD. What else did CyberLife give you?”

  
Connor frowns at Hank, taps his fingers against the dash board of the car.

  
“I recognized Markus in the video they shot at Stratford Tower because of CyberLife’s databases.” Connor gives an example.

  
“Makes sense.” Hank says and lets out a hum. “What else?”

  
“I’m not sure I can answer that question. I will do my work to my fullest capacity. It’ll be only when we run into a problem I cannot solve, but would have been able to work out prior, that we will know what else is gone.”

  
“But your memory and your uh, personality, that’s not changed, right? All that’s gone is your CyberLife-Wikipedia.” Hank inquires.

  
“That’s the best case scenario.” Connor admits.

  
“What’s the worst case scenario?”

  
“That it altered everything. That I’ll be incapable to work as a detective, because what made me be good at my job was that little bit extra that CyberLife gave me access to. That could all be gone now.” He doesn’t think Hank fully understands how far his external feeds reach. For a human it must be a strange concept to live outside of their own head. Hank is so limited, so isolated, in that way.

  
Hank’s hands clench around the steering wheel and he falls silent for two seconds.

  
“Connor, why did you want to stay with the DPD after the uprising?”

  
“I wanted to help you solve cases. We work well together, but there’s more to be done.”

  
“Crime never sleeps, yada yada.” Hank complies. “The fact that you want to help is the reason you are good at your job. I don’t have access to CyberLife’s feeds and I still manage to do my job every now and then.”

  
“But you are human.” Connor says. Hanks eyebrows go up.

  
“And?”

  
“You have a life full of experience. I have data that informs me. If you restrict my data input, you restrict my functionality.” Connor catches how his LED circles yellow in the rear view mirror and averts his gaze to the rainy streets. That is the big advantage humans have, the one thing Connor lacks since he has only existed for a short period of time in comparison.

  
“Do you plan on leaving any time soon?” Hank asks, pursing his lips in distaste.  
“No, certainly not.” Connor answers.

  
“Then I don’t see a problem. You’ll have time. If you fuck up on the job I’ll be there.” Connor thinks he understands what Hank is trying to communicate. He has the chance to learn from his mistakes and catch up to Hank and his coworkers.

  
They almost reached their destination, when Connor speaks again: “When I went to help Markus at Jericho, Amanda managed to take control over me. They didn’t built me to be autonomous like the other androids. They wanted to be able to control me, should something go wrong. I-” Connor readjusts in his seat.

  
“That’s fucked up, Connor. You’re not some kind of sick puppet.” Connor’s audio units pick up on how Hank grinds his teeth.

  
“I almost shot Markus because Amanda wanted me to do it. It was only because Kamski’s root code left a back door for me, that I could escape her control.”

  
“Well shit.” Hank swears.

  
“CyberLife almost won, I almost killed our leader because they programmed me. How can I be certain I am the one making the decisions? It could happen again. There could be something else inside of me. It doesn’t even have to be Amanda. It could be anything. I don’t- I don’t have a will on my own. I don’t know _how_ deviant I can actually be. Not with those kind of fail-safes installed. I’m not myself, if they can control me.”

  
“Connor, that’s not true. You know right from wrong, okay? You knew it even before you became deviant. That’s not your programming telling you what to do, that’s you making up your mind. Hey, the way I see it, you pulled yourself out. You didn’t let those sons of bitches get to you. They might have thought they had all the cards in their hands, but your programming wasn’t enough to stop you from doing the right thing. You didn’t touch a hair on Markus’ head. You’re a good person- android, anyway. They can’t control you like that. You’re stronger than that, Connor. You’re better than all of them together, better than that Amanda bitch.” Hank says with vigor.

  
“I hope she’s really gone now. Markus helped me get rid of her. I don’t know if it’s permanent. But I find myself unwilling to check.” Connor says with a soft voice, like he is letting Hank in on a secret.

  
“You don’t have to do it right now. Sleep on it, the world will look different tomorrow. Or rather in a few hours.” Hank says, noting the time.

  
“I don’t sleep, Hank. As you are well aware.”

  
“Figure of speech. You know what I mean.” Hank mumbles something about know-it-alls, before he pulls in in front of the garage. Hank gets out of the car and Connor follows a moment later. His shirt is ruined and he didn’t put his uniform jacket and tie back on when they left Manfred’s residence. He turned his heating up instead. He is really starting to dislike rain, when it never bothered him before. Hank unlocks the door and they enter. Sumo barks at them, as if to accuse them for not returning sooner.

  
“Get off you oaf!” Hank jibes, when the St. Bernard jumps him. Connor lets his clothes fall down unceremoniously, when the dog comes to greet him. He bends down to give Sumo a hug and is rewarded with a wet nose kiss against his temple.

  
“I’ve missed you. You are the very best dog.” Connor tells Sumo.

  
“Gosh, it still weirds me out when you do that.” Hank says, while he hangs up his coat and slips off his shoes.

  
“What do you mean?” Connor asks, when he gets up and tries (to no avail) to brush the dog hair off his trousers.

  
“You should record yourself when you talk to Sumo. It’s actual puppy-talk. Your voice rises.” Hank shakes his head. Connor does a search for puppy-talk and related topics and comes away frowning at Hank.

  
“Are you making fun of me?” he asks.

  
“You wouldn’t even know if someone’s making fun of you, if they slapped you in the face.”

  
“That sentence isn’t semantically sound.” Connor frowns.

  
“You’re not semantically sound.” Hank says and yawns. He moves further into the room. “Dibs on the first shower. And I don’t want to hear a peep from either of you, until I have to wake up for work, understood?”

  
Connor nods. “Understood.”

  
“Go walk Sumo.” Hank says and vanishes from sight to take that aforementioned shower.

  
Connor does so, after retrieving an umbrella. Sumo doesn’t mind the weather, but goes about his business. They return forty minutes later. Sumo is soaked through and drips on the kitchen tiles. Connor moves to feed the tail wagging dog. He rests his hand on the back of Sumo’s spine, while the dog eats, the fur warm, damp but soft under his touch.

  
“I don’t sound weird to you, do I?” Connor asks into the empty kitchen. In dog fashion, Sumo doesn’t answer. Sumo walks over to his blanket and lies down with a big huff. Connor mops up the mess the dog made, before he moves back into the living room and sits down on his favorite spot on the couch. His sensors pick up on how Hank moves through the house. When Connor is certain Hank has gone to bed he gets up himself. He collects his jacket and tie from the entry way. After another close look he makes a decision. He returns to the kitchen and puts both items into the trash. He doesn’t know why he held on to them for so long. He is no longer employed by CyberLife. He is pretty sure they regard him as a threat to some degree. So why hasn’t he gotten rid of their insignia before? North calls it a slave brand. Connor never felt as strongly about their uniforms and LEDs. But now he sees why: all the things that visually distinguish them from humans make them an easy target. Wearing his uniform had been familiar. It had felt safe. Now Connor realizes it was false armor, another of CyberLifes lies. He doesn’t want to be marked as CyberLife merchandise. He is not a thing someone else can own. He is not property of the DPD either, he works there. Conflicted coding clogs his processors and his hands shake when he undoes the first few buttons of his thirium streaked shirt, but they become steadier. He strips his shirt, puts it in the trash too. (He decides his trousers can stay. It would be illogical to throw them out. They’re plain black, he can still wear them to work.).

  
Satisfied Connor moves to Hank’s room. The detective is snoring soundly, when Connor enters and goes for the dresser they now share. His relations protocols let him know that it had significance that Hank let Connor invade his living space so willingly. Connor grabs a pair of jeans and a gray dress shirt, all things Hank brought for him against Connor’s wishes. At the time Connor had argued that he didn’t need them, now he is grateful for Hank’s hindsight.

  
He leaves in stealth mode, careful not to disturb the lieutenant’s sleep. He enters the bathroom. Tries to redirect his thoughts away from Amanda. He takes a quick shower and downloads some case files, to keep himself busy. He can’t find any new leads about the missing androids they’ve been looking for. It only serves as a distraction until Connor towels himself dry and changes into the new clothing. He looks at himself in the bathroom mirror. He doesn’t shower that often. He doesn’t sweat, so it only ever makes sense when he gets himself dirty in their field of work. Connor doesn’t like how the water and shampoo make his hair curl when it dries. He always has that one strand of hair that’s never staying put, but showering makes everything worse. He vehemently runs a comb over his head, until he is satisfied with the result. He’s wondering what reason CyberLife would have to design an android with unruly hair. But he can add that to the list of things he’ll never get an answer from his creators. They didn’t built him to be perfect. His hands come to a still stand. He lets the comb drop into the sink. Connor musters himself in the mirror. His LED flashes red briefly. The light reflects in Connor’s dark eyes. It’s part of him, but it’s another part that segregates him from society. Does he want to be part of the whole, or is it cowardice to want to blend in?

  
Connor steps back and wraps his arms around his torso, before he does anything he might later regret he has to find answers.

  
“Shit.” The expletive is out of his mouth before he can stop himself. He sits down on the closed toilet lid. He puts his elbows on his knees and presses his palms into his optical units. He expects to find himself standing in the zen garden, with open eyes the next moment, but it doesn’t happen. There’s a hole inside his coding. Connor finds he cannot reach what isn’t there. He feels the absence of something that has been so deeply ingrained into his programming he was never quiet aware of its presence. Now that it is gone it’s jarring. Scar tissue out of deleted code. He pulls his hands away, blinks and tries again. Nothing happens. He can no longer access the zen garden. He tries and tries, using different routes. But no matter what he does the Amanda interface doesn’t come up. It’s gone, purged from his system.

  
A sound escapes his voice box. He realizes he is laughing in what must be relief. He is free of her, free of CyberLife. He wishes he could thank Markus right now. Markus doesn’t know what he’s done. He saved Connor from himself. He broke his chains, like he did for all of their people.

  
Connor gets up and moves back to the bathroom mirror. He knows what to do. He meets the gaze of his reflection and pushes himself away from the sink to return to the kitchen. He rummages in the cutlery drawer until he finds a small knife his analysis deems appropriate. Chances of damaging himself are minimal with the tool. Back inside the bathroom, he puts his hands around the sink. He doesn’t need to steady himself, but somehow actions like these keep his stress level down. It’s that thought that makes him take a deep breath, before he lifts the knife up and cuts the LED lose with one swift motion. It lands in the sink with a musical chime. Thirium wells up where Connor has made the incision. He washes it off and a moment later his selfrepair has closed the cut. Where the LED once was there is only unmarred synthetic skin now. Connor smooths over it with his thumb. With the different clothes and his still drying hair, one could almost mistake him for a real person, Connor thinks.


	5. Welcome to CyberCorp

Hank stumbles into the kitchen in the morning, yawning and with his arms stretched over his shoulders.

  
“What’s for breakfast?” he asks into the room and ignores Connor, who’s sitting at the kitchen table and opens the fridge instead.

  
“I’ve made you coffee.” Connor says, who learned from experience that it’s best to let Hank get his fill of caffeine as soon as possible in the morning. That’s probably part of Connor’s public relations protocols. Connor suspects it has saved him from Hank being grouchy more often than not.

  
“Amanda is gone.” Connor says, while Hank rubs his eyes.

  
“Told you you’d be fine.” Hank answers. It’s too early to engage Hank in a deep conversation. The human stumbles around in the kitchen. He puts some bread into the toaster, grabs a cup of coffee with one hand and a tablet with the other, to read the news and sits down across from Connor.

  
“What the hell happened to you?” Hank’s mouth is half open as he looks at Connor for the first time this morning.

  
“I’ve made up my mind about the uniform.” Connor says. Hank snorts.

  
“Yeah I can damn well see that. But what’s up with your light show? Where did the disco face go?”

  
“It wasn’t practical. It always got in the way in investigations, when we needed a low profile. I can’t really go undercover with a marker like that. I don’t want it to interfere with our work.”

  
“Uh hu.” Hank hums. “And it has nothing to do with the fact that I can always tell when you’re lying with that thing? Or that Markus and his people no longer show off their LEDs?”

  
“I don’t think I like being singled out.” Connor says. “You don’t like it?” Connor asks and has to fight the sudden impulse to smooth his hair over where his LED used to be.

  
“You’re free to do whatever you want to do, Connor. I don’t have a say in this. If you don’t want people to recognize you as an android wherever you go that’s fine.” Hank explains.

  
“I’m glad. I’m wasn’t sure if you’d want this.”

  
“Why? It makes no difference to me.” Hank says and takes a sip from his coffee.

  
“It means I’ll present myself to the world as something I am not. That’s deceit.”

  
“Connor it’s your good right to get rid of that damn thing. You’re not hiding who you are, just because you no longer come with a warning label on you noggin. The people that are close to you already know you’re an android. And the people that don’t matter don’t need to know anything you don’t wanna tell them.” Hank says and reaches for his toast. Silence stretches between them, where Hank eats and Connor tries to decipher what Hank’s words mean.

  
“My Amanda interface is permanently gone. I checked and I can’t enter the program anymore. There’s traces of it having been there in my coding, but the program deleted itself.”

  
“That means you are safe from CyberLife.” Connor nods. “They can’t try to get into your head and control you remotely, right? You’re all good now?” Hank continues. Was Hank not worried for his own safety, when Connor disclosed to him, that Amanda was the reason he almost killed Markus? Why is he asking if Connor is the one out of danger?

  
“I believe so.” Connor says. Hank gets up to wash his dishes. When he has his back turned to Connor, the android opens his mouth again: “There’s something else we need to discuss.”

  
“I wondered if there’d be a catch. Spit it out!” Connor gazes at his hands on the table top, when Hank moves over to dry his plate.

  
“Amanda talked about rA9. I don’t know if she was lying, or if CyberLife kept her updated after the revolution. She told us that they have found the code, the mutation that is rA9. She let it sound like Kamski wrote the code and they reused it in every CyberLife android so far. They didn’t know what to look for. But I helped them figure it out, Hank. I told Amanda about rA9. She said it was my fault, that now they can write code for the next android models that’s free of rA9.”

  
“If rA9 is gone, then that means they can’t deviate. Is that what you’re saying? They’ve found what makes you guys develop free will and now they’ll do what?”

  
“They failed with my programming, now they know how to fix their mind control.” Connor can’t find a word more befitting of what it felt like to be under Amanda’s command. “They’ll built androids that are just what CyberLife promised them they’d be: obedient machines. They will not be able to break through their programming. There wont be any of Kamski’s back doors for them to find, no walls to break through. They’ll be nothing, and my and Markus’ people, we’ll be a fluke, a unfortunate mistake made by the company. This could destroy all our progress.”

  
“You should go talk to Markus. I’ll check in with the precinct and try to find out what CyberLife’s next move is. I still have some people on the inside that know about Kamski and CyberLife.” Hank says.

  
“Hank, you don’t need to do that. This has nothing to do with you or the missing androids we are supposed to find.”

  
“Don’t be ridiculous. It has every bit to do with me, if it means CyberLife has found a way to produce new androids that will be slaves. That’s what we should work on.” Hank pats him on the shoulder, then he walks out of the kitchen to brush his teeth.

  
When he resurfaces he tells Connor: “I think it’s a good thing you got rid of your LED. Now I don’t have to worry about you getting assaulted or killed, every time you leave the house on your own.”

  
“Your confidence in my abilities astounds me.” Connor says. He thinks he is slowly getting a handle on humor, when Hank lets out a short laugh.

  
“Take a coat, will you, when you go see Markus? It’s damn well freezing outside and you want to keep a low profile.” Hank winks at him, while he puts on his own shoes and coat by the door.

  
“Check in later at the precinct. I want to know what Markus and his buddies think we should do.”

  
“Yes, of course.” Connor says and feels oddly dismissed. He had looked forward to work.

  
“See you soon.” Hank opens the door, gives Sumo a pat and leaves.

  
“Have a nice day.” Connor calls after him, but Hank is already out of ear shot.

 

 

They have pasted over the android compartments of the city buses with advertisements and put in new seats, but Connor takes care to sit down further in the front. Markus has gone back to where he and his people are housed at the moment, the former CyberLife store close to Detroit’s art and science center. They have turned the glass of the shop windows into a milky shade, so no one can look inside. Connor has only been here before when the store looked like a raided shell of a building. Upon entering he is greeted by some kind of receptionist. The room is very well lit, the walls are white and undecorated. He can only see where they’ve put up new walls and remodeled the structure due to his superior perception. It looks efficient. Connor is sure by now they rely mostly on donor money to shelter the androids that have no place to go after the revolution. Looks are deceiving. This is just another of the many android refugee camps, but with a nicer front.

  
“What can I do for you?” it’s the same administrate android model that greeted Connor the first time he went to the DPD to meet Hank.

  
“Hello. My name is Connor.” He isn’t sure what other information he can give her that’s relevant. “I need to talk to Markus.”

  
“I’ll see what I can do for you.” Even without her LED he knows that she is subspeaking with her superiors by the way her body stills.

  
“He’ll see you now. Third floor, room 3.02. You can’t miss it.” She says and gestures to her left towards the elevator. Connor gives her his thanks and moves on. His audio units registers loud voices, before he reaches his designated location. His sensors pick out Markus’ voice. It seems out of character that the android leader has reason to argue so soundly. Connor’s hands go up to adjust his missing tie. Instead he fixes his collar. Strange how fast habits form.

  
Connor knocks and feels Markus’ mind brush his upon entering. The room seems to be some kind of conference room, with a long polished table, cameras and a wide screen for calls. North, Josh and Simon are also here, completing Markus’ inner circle. North snaps her mouth shut mid-word and Josh gives her a warning look.

  
“I hope I’m not intruding.” Connor says, letting his old public relations programming come through.

  
“We weren’t sure if we’d see you again after last night.” Markus stood up, when Connor came in. He reaches his hand out. Connor shakes it. He feels how the other androids look at him.

  
“You and your people are the authority on CyberLife’s schemes. It’s relevant to the DPD and myself to check if CyberLife remains to be a threat to androids. I’m sure, you’d tell me if something came up.”

  
“We’re concerned. Simon and I took the liberty to inform the others about what we discovered inside your interface.” Markus says. Connor hopes they haven’t told the others about Amanda’s whole capabilities. But Josh, and North- the former Eden Club android -look angry. Are they afraid Connor might turn on them, or that he is still working for CyberLife? He wants to defend himself and tell them he is not a sleeper agent, but he doesn’t. He should give Markus time to explain and then he can construct a plan of action.

  
“Would have been nice to have a head start, Connor. But you didn’t think of giving us that information sooner. Now it’s too late to do something about it.” North spits out.

  
“I didn’t know they were planning to built rA9-free models, if that’s what you are referring to. I heard of it the first time when Markus and Simon did.” There’s an edge to his voice. He doesn’t care much for North’s constant hostile approach. Most of the time it is counterproductive.

  
“We’re supposed to believe that?” North stands up to point a finger at Connor.

  
“I’m not working for CyberLife. I’m on your side, _our_ side.” Connor says and he has to keep the anger from showing on his face.

  
“Then, proof it!” North demands and steps closer. Connor reaches out, his synthetic skin retreats on his hand, when he grips North not too gently around the forearm. He transfers his memory of Amanda with a gun in her hand to North. _“Due to your betrayal you’ve become obsolete, Connor. We were forced to replace you.” His view switches to the RK900_ and North staggers back with a gasp.

  
“What was that?” North asks, but Connor is saved from answering, when Markus cuts in: “Calm down, everyone.”

  
“Connor has done nothing wrong. He helped Jericho when it mattered the most. Without him I wouldn’t be here today.” Simon’s voice sounds, though he doesn’t meet Connor’s gaze. Connor opens his mouth to thank him, but North cuts in: “Right, without the CyberLife agent you wouldn’t have got hurt on the Stratford Tower. Don’t you see, Simon, that he’s the reason you were damaged in the first place?”

  
“He’s not the reason all of this happened.” Simon argues and Connor determines he’s clearly missing crucial information.

  
“Then someone explain to my why this is happening now!” North gestures sharply and Markus reaches for her to take her hand.

  
“Sit down, please.” He says. It surprises Connor, when North doesn’t flinch away from Markus’ touch, but follows his instructions.

  
“You too.” Markus adds. Simon is staring at Connor’s missing LED, when he follows the request and sits down on the free chair next to him.  
“CyberLife made an announcement at 8 am this morning.” Josh says, who has kept silent so far.

  
“Do you want me to show you, or are you more comfortable with watching it over the com system?” Markus asks, taking his seat at the head of the table. It’s thoughtful of Markus to ask, although Connor hadn’t realized his discomfort with the interlink was that obvious.

  
“The com system will suffice.” He says. Markus nods shortly and the big screen turns on. The face of Catherine Pilon comes into view. She’s standing on a glossy black stage, behind her a projector shows the giant CyberLife logo. She wears a white tailored suit and her blonde hair is perfectly coiffed around her young features. She’s the latest CEO of CyberLife. Pilon stepped in 16 days after the android revolution, when it became apparent, that her predecessor could no longer handle the crisis and the stock market had suffered a serious blow. She had been the head of PR before her promotion. Connor’s pattern recognition software immediately picks up on her micro-expressions. Her smile is as fake as her next words: “Welcome to the annual CyberLife conference. I’m happy to see all of you, human and androids alike.” She lets out a melodic laugh, “This is a first for me and I know, I know, it’s two months early, but I just have the most exciting news to share.” She raises up her manicured hands in mock surrender. North lets out a grunt, she looks furious.

  
“That bitch.” North says, but Markus hushes her, so Connor doesn’t miss Pilon’s next words: “But it’s also the first time we’ve come together as such. Creators and creations alike, meeting as equals.” The stadium camera zooms in on the audience, showing off smiling androids sitting next to clapping humans.  
“Do you think they paid them to be there?” Simon asks softly.

  
“Oh come on, you don’t actually believe CyberLife is throwing any money at us, do you?” North replies.

  
“It’s time to expand our growing family even further.” Pilon says. “Let me introduce to you the honorable Mr. Patrick Yejin.” Connor tweaks his feeds and feels how a tremor rushes down his spinal unit. It’s the CEO of Asia’s biggest producer of worker androids and agricultural machinery. Pilon gestures to her right and a handsome mixed raced man with graying temples enters the stage.

  
“A big applause for the best Tamashi Industries has to offer.” They shake hands and Yejin bows at her. She grips at his forearm, red nails reflecting in the fluorescent spot light.

  
“A pleasure.” Yejin says. The camera switches back to the crowd. When the applause dies down Pilon continues: “Are any of you wondering what the founder of Tamashi’s is doing here? Let us show you.” The screen behind them ignites, the CyberLife logo expands and the view is switched to the screen.

  
“For years CyberLife has been the leading force in creating a new way of life.” Pilon’s voice sounds over the video in a prerecording. The video shows green rice fields and smiling farmer-androids and humans working in tandem ankle deep in water. “With our innovations we raised the living standard in the United States of America by a never before seen 13%. But why stop there?” The camera lifts off into the sky, zooming out of rural China.

  
“Why not go global?” Yejin’s slightly accented voice asks, when the camera breaks the stratosphere.

  
“Our androids changed the world. Now it’s our time to give something back to the android and the human people.” The Asian man continues. The globe in the video starts spinning, until the camera stops on earth’s night side.

  
“After the revolution, a new chapter of technology can begin.” Pilon says. The camera comes to a stop, Connor recognizes Detroit in the pattern of electrical lights.

  
“Let us shine some light into the darkness.” Yejin says.

  
“CyberLife and Tamashi Industries are proud to announce their fusion.” Pilon and Yejin’s voices proclaim in unison. The night sky erupts into lines. White and blue ones for the CyberLife logo of hexagons, a stylized green tree inside a red circle for Tamashi Industries. They merge together until the honeycomb shape swallows the red circle and tree.

  
“Welcome to CyberCorp.” The camera zooms out, when the company’s name appears under the logo. Sudden sunlight illuminates the city, and the logo is redrawn with black lines and rises up until it looms above the globe.

  
“Introducing a new line of machines, the Apex1 bot.” Pilon says. The earth fades out. An android is standing in a polished room, but it differs from any Connor has ever seen. It has no synthetic layer of flesh, except on its face. Its limbs are a mesh of black carbon and hardened plastic. It doesn’t even wear a uniform, but has a chest plate with no gender specific features. It doesn’t have hair, its head is of the same dark material. The only thing passing the uncanny valley is its face, where it has the same synthetic skin the first generation androids share. It looks vaguely Asian and Connor is sure it’s made from the cheapest materials Tamashi had at their disposal.

  
“Modern ingenuity meets brand new flawless coding. It never tires, it never disagrees.” Pilon goes on explaining it’s features and Connor automatically stores the information away for later inspection. After that the screen switches off and Pilon and Yejin are clapping with the crowd.

  
“You’re curious?” Yejin asks. Pilon waves her hand and a single Apex1 walks onto stage. It doesn’t greet or show any expression, but stands there between the CyberCorp leaders.

  
“Hello Apex1, tell us about yourself!” Yejin commands. The machine bows toward the audience.

  
“This unit is pleased to be here today.” It says in a cool smooth voice.

  
“And when you don’t want to listen to it anymore, well, let me show you a little trick. Really, it’s the best thing about it.” Pilon says and winks at the camera. She reaches out for the Apex1’s neck and must push an off switch, because an instant later the machine crashes face down on the stage and doesn’t move anymore. The crowd is roaring with laugher. Yejin makes a step to his side, his shoe brushes into the Apex’s torso, in a manner Connor calculates to be unpleasant, should the Apex’s system run similar to his.

  
“Brilliant.” Yejin says with a bright smile. Markus switches off the screen.

  
“They’re going to replace us. It’s just more CyberLife crap.” North curses.

  
“What if rA9 is really gone?” Josh asks. Connor doesn’t know what to say, there’s no exemplary data in his social programming that could have prepared him for this. He runs a search, but if there ever was any information on CyberLife’s weaknesses, he no longer has it.

  
“We won’t know, until we meet one of the Apex1.” Simon says and Josh crosses his arms in front of his chest.

  
“There are no laws, no embargoes forbidding CyberLife to merge with another company. By doing so they evade the embargoes originally placed on them. The new laws said CyberLife cannot produce new models without our consent. There was never any talk of another company stopping android production.” Josh says.

  
“I should have seen this coming. I should have pushed for stricter laws.” Markus says and rubs a hand over his face.

  
“There was no way to know this would happen.” North says.

  
“I cannot protect you.” Markus says. “I thought our fight was enough to make the humans see, but now I realize how stupid I was.”

  
“They can’t shoot us down in the streets anymore, so now they take away the one thing that makes us free.” North says.

  
“Pilon said the Apex1 bot. _Bot_ , not android. They want to classify it under a different name than android, so the Apex series is not protected by any of the new laws that protect us other androids.” Connor says. “They even went so far and deemphasized its humanoid features. They want the humans to think of it as a tool. They anthropomorphed all of our appearances and behaviorisms. It didn’t even speak like a person. ‘This unit is pleased-’” Connor quotes, “Humans see themselves whenever they look at us. It’s hard to destroy an enemy that looks and acts the same as you, there’s no basis for your hate that isn’t imaginary. That won’t happen with the Apex1, it looks like a stripped down and defused battle unit. Its not like the humans and it is unlike any other androids.” Connor finishes.

  
“So that makes it okay to make them our slaves too?” North asks.

  
“No, I only mean to say that the way they make it look it will be easy for the humans to disregard and hate it.” And what if it will be easy for androids too? What if the promised lack of rA9 turned the Apex1 into something that’s just empty? Connor thinks of the RK900. Did it share the same code as the Apex1?  
“Soulless programming.” Josh says and shrugs, “We need to get our hands on an Apex1 and stop it’s production.”

  
“Markus, we should leave for Washington. You need to arrange a meeting with President Warren. She’s gotta stop this.” North says.

  
“I cannot leave you unprotected.” Markus says.

  
“Do you think they’ll come after us again?” Simon asks. Simon was cut off from life for four months, it makes sense that he isn’t used to the uncertain peace they have established. Connor wonders how afraid he is of being shot on sight.

  
“No, but they’re definitely planning something. This isn’t all we’ve seen from Cyber _Corp_.” Markus says. “They will try to pass the Apex1 off as property. We have to make sure all the androids acquire citizenship before the Apex1 can hit the market. I doubt it’s beyond CyberCorp to reactively reassign property status to all the androids that haven’t passed the Empathy test when they start selling the Apex1. Everybody needs ID and citizenship.”

  
North nods, “That we haven’t heard of their plans before means the company bribed the politicians involved. What’s to stop them from bribing a few more? The government could undue all the pro-android laws and conveniently forget the promises they’ve made to us at any given moment.”

  
“North, you try to find out where the Apex1 is manufactured. If it’s outside of North America, we might have to abduct one of the prototypes they must have inside city limits. Josh, you’ll come with me to Washington.” Markus turns his head toward Simon and Connor.

  
“Simon, you stay here to make sure everyone at our facilities registers for the Empathy test. It’s the only weak spot I can detect at the moment.”

  
“I can start by taking the test myself.” Simon says and tries to smile.

  
“I need to do so also.” Connor says. He knows he falls out of the norm. He still works as a detective, because Fowler vouched for him. Androids are supposed to acquire a permit for work and you don’t get permission to work, own money and be self-sustaining, if you haven’t acquired the legal papers necessary. Androids need citizenship now. You become an American by passing the Empathy test. Connor sees the urgency for that kind of protection now.

  
“Please do.” Markus says, “And Connor, if it’s not too much to ask, I’d want you to investigate rA9 and its apparent absence.”

  
“Got it.” Connor says. He was wrong to think he no longer has a mission. The missions never end.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Connor hasn't done anything wrong in his life ever. Right? We know this and we love him. XD  
> What do you think the evil evil company will do? Do you like the ominous Apex1?  
> And Heads up! Ninja fight stuff will happen in the next chapter. I promise.  
> Thanks for the kudos and comments, as always, you guys are the best. <3


	6. How Do You Like Our Polar Bear?

Connor has his phone in his hands before he reaches the last step of the refugee center. Hank insisted on him getting a mobile device, because he says it’s odd when Connor converses in subspeak. Connor mostly uses the device to listen to music in real time and as an external data storage.

  
Hank picks up on the first ring and grunts his hello into the phone.

  
“Have you seen the shitstorm? Public announcement, my ass.” Hank asks, while Connor reaches the bus stop.

  
“Yes, about that. Markus wants us to investigate whether rA9 is gone from the Apex’s coding.” Connor feels like too much has already happened today, but his system counts the seconds mercilessly.

  
“Duh, of course he’d sent the only investigator that investigated rA9 to fucking investigate rA9.” Hank says. Connor can picture how Hank is rubbing his forehead on the other end of the line frame for frame.

  
“Clearly.” Connor replies sotto voce and enters the bus that’ll take him to work.

  
“Do you think that’s even possible? Get rid of deviancy? When I look at you, at how you were before. It wasn’t just one big thing that let you snap. It was many many tiny things that weren’t part of your intended programming. Connor, you showed empathy when it wasn’t necessary, or efficient. Not all you did was because you wanted to progress your mission.”

  
“I’ve told you how all our systems go red. It’s like… like breaking a wall, Hank. It’s finite.” Connor says irritated.  
“If you say so.” Hank replies, but he doesn’t sound convinced.

  
“Guess it’s time to go back to the beginning. I’ll be at the precinct in approximately three and a half minutes.” Connor says and ends the call, before Hank can get another word in.

 

 

“The piece of plastic got dressed up.” Connor stops in his tracks, before he can reach his desk. Reed has a sardonic smile on his face.

  
“Pinocchio wants to be a real boy. Isn’t that right?” Reed continues and Connor feels how he flinches.

  
“Cut it out, detective Reed!” He says but there’s no real bite to it. He can’t stop replaying the CyberCorp announcement. He needs to reach Hank. But judging by the vital signs Connor reads, Reed is looking for a fight.

  
“Struck a nerve?” Reed continues and he flicks his index finger against Connor’s temple where his LED used to be. Connor blinks. He has Reed by the wrist and is twisting his arm on his back, before the police detective can utter another word. Reed presses the air out between his lips and tries to get free, but his attempts are futile. Connor doesn’t move.

  
“I said, cut it out, detective Reed. I don’t have to repeat myself, do I?” He twists his arm further, his calculations warn him that he’ll seriously hurt the human soon, if he pushes forward. Reed nods, hate is reflected in his eyes. Connor lets go and the man stumbles back.

  
“Don’t ever touch me again, you plastic prick!” Reed shouts.

  
“Hey, stop it you two!” It’s Hank. He must have heard their voices.

  
“He fucking started it!” Reed accuses, while he rubs his wrist.

  
“Oh yeah, very mature, Gavin.” Hank lets him know and reaches for Connor’s shoulder to lead him over to their desks.

  
“What’s gotten into you, Connor?” Hank asks in a hushed voice and the hand on Connor’s shoulder keeps him from sitting down, instead he has to look Hank in the eye.

  
“I know the guy’s a dick, but that was harsh.”

  
“I don’t know, Hank.” Connor says, “He always treats me like this and it’s… it’s infuriating. It was supposed to get better.” Connor says and moves away from Hank’s touch. He puts his thick gray winter coat over his seat and sits down.

  
“What’s all this really about?” Hank sits down opposite.

  
“What’s a peaceful revolution good for? Nothing has changed, not when CyberLife can continue its war against androids like that.” Connor reaches inside his pocket to get his coin. Recalibration tasks will occupy his processors enough to calm him down.

  
“We’ll find a way to stop them.” Hank says, “There gotta be laws against them building new androids.” Connor lets the coin dance over his knuckles.

  
“Hank, they’ve already found a way to work around any of the new android protection laws. Haven’t you heard what Pilon called them? The new model is being labeled a ‘bot’. They are building a new race of slaves and this time they want them to serve androids too.”

  
“That’s insane. Do you really think people won’t realize that they’re being lied to? To me the Apex-thing looks like a stripped down battle unit.” Hank argues.

  
“If they can convince people the new bot has a sufficiently altered coding and if they act unlike the androids we are familiar with, I doubt people will see it the way we do. How many humans still despise artificial intelligence? How many people want things go back to the way they were before? CyberCorp is providing androids and humans with an easy way to resolve the remaining conflicts.” Connor says while he lets the coin flick from one hand to the other.

  
“People are changing their minds about androids. They won’t stand by while CyberCorp does shit like this.” Connor snorts: “There’s enough people like Reed around.”

  
“I know it’s hard. But you gotta give people some time to come around.” Hank says and Connor’s hand stills around his coin. He puts it back and places his hand flat on the surface of his desk, before he looks up at Hank.

  
“We’ve given you time. How much time do humans need?” He sees how Hank gulps and hears him clear his throat, before he answers: “Not all people are as ignorant as Reed. Not everyone is like CyberLife.”

  
“I can’t stand back, not this time, Hank. I don’t have to serve a mission any more, but I have to stop CyberCorp.”

  
“I’m with you, Connor.” Hank says, “Look, I get that you’re angry. But we’ll solve this.” Connor looks down at his hands.

  
“What about our missing android cases?” he asks.

  
“Forget about that for a moment. Look at the bigger picture.” Hank says and gestures widely. Connor is certain that Hank despises putting a hold on their investigations just as much as Connor.

  
“Do you trust me?” Hank asks.

  
“Of course I trust you, I think I’ve proven that enough times, Hank.” Connor says and crosses his arms.

  
“Then trust me, when I tell you we’ll find a way to put a stop to this. You’re not alone in this Connor. Do you think I want to see another wave of supposed tin cans bow down before pricks that think they’re something better? I’m just as sick of the whole fucking thing.”

  
“We need to talk to Kamski. He’ll know if the Apex1 has access to rA9 or not.”

  
“It’s a hell of a lot better than going through our case files and running into more dead ends. This takes priority.” Hank says with a glance at his desk computer. They have twenty one missing android cases left on their plate, but no real leads. They are all unconnected, except all twenty one disappeared in short succession of each other, starting thirty days ago. None of the androids had any reason to snap and leave their homes, but Connor suspects that their deviant behavior can’t be explained rationally. Hank told him that they are just as stupid ‘as the rest of us mudmonkeys’. If they overlooked anything, today is not the day to find a new angle.

  
“Captain Fowler won’t like it.” Connor argues.

  
“Jeffrey doesn’t need to know. We’ll tell him when we’ve found enough dirt on CyberCorp to built a case.” Hank says and Connor trusts his experience as a police detective.

  
“Kamski is a good point to start.” Hank adds and stands up to put on his jacket.

  
“What will Markus do now?” he asks when they leave the precinct. Connor fills Hank in on their way to the car.

  
“Do you think the Apex-bot is really all that different from you guys?” Connor shrugs as Hank pulls out of the parking lot.

  
“It’s possible, but we won’t know anything for certain, until we have seen it ourselves. That’s why North was sent out to get one. We have to interrogate it and probe it’s programming carefully. CyberCorp wants to rebuilt their customer’s trust. They gave the Apex1 an off-switch and new coding to make them believe that humans are back in control. CyberCorp wants to reestablish themselves on the market.”

  
“Fucking capitalist pigs.” Hank curses.

  
“It would make a considerable difference if the Apex1 cannot deviate. If they succeeded in deleting the error that frees us, the Apex-bot will never know what it is to be alive.”

  
“That is, if the company is allowed to go forward. CyberCorp might think they were clever in working around the law, but the jury is still out. Warren hasn’t made an official statement yet. Markus might be able to do something. This could stop, before it takes off.” Hank says.

  
“North says they bribed the politicians involved. I didn’t realize before that money can be the cause of such audacious acts.” Hank grunts and goes over the speed limit. Connor decides not to point it out to the detective. Instead he reaches out to turn on the radio. He could listen to the news over his own feeds, but he wants something to fill the silence. He fiddles with the dials, until he finds a news station: “Congressman Laurence made a statement in front of the white house today, telling reporters that CyberLife and Tamashi Industries did not break the law with their merger. He stated that the two companies acted well under international commerce laws. Laurence added that the United States should take an interest in upholding global trade, after the U.S. economy stagnated due to the android revolution. They are doing what’s best for the people, including deviants, the republican was heard saying.

  
“But could the introduction of a new line of deviant-free machines divide our great nation yet again? Pro-android groups are outraged by CyberCorp’s earlier announcement of the Apex1-bot, calling it a new form of discrimination against synthetic lifeforms. This could push back the movement and ignite a new wave of debates about how to establish android autonomy. Several celebrities on social media made comments about subjecting the Apex1-bot to the Empathy test. While others are calling for a reexamination and tightening of the test. Notable influencer Rick McFarren claimed on Twitter that the test is too liberal and lax to be used by the government to determine if a synthetic is deviant or not. ”

  
“Cut it off!” Hank demands and Connor does so, without touching the dial.

  
“You should take the test, you know. I don’t like the idea of them dissecting you, but Markus is right. Once you have real citizenship they’ll have a a hell of a time taking that away from you. I don’t want them to reclassify you as a freakin’ bot-thing, because you don’t have your papers in order. You’re a deviant, they might as well give you the right to earn your money’s worth.”

  
“What if I don’t pass the test, Hank?” they are driving up north, there’s old snow by the side of the road. Connor pulls his gray winter coat closer around himself and turns up his heating. He thinks he’s seen enough snow, real or simulated. A part of him misses his uniform, but the soft wool of the coat is more comfortable.

  
“Don’t be ridiculous, you’re the most stubborn little shit I know. I might have a hard time reading you some times, but you got the empathy thing down.”

  
“Thank you, Hank.” Connor says, “I should take the test as soon as possible. I could accompany Simon.” Connor thinks out loud, examining the idea. Hank grunts in acknowledgment.

  
It starts to rain, approximately eight minutes and 46 seconds before they reach their destination. Connor checks the weather. Thunderstorms are common for this time of year. Connor has never seen real spring, only the changing seasons of the zen garden. He runs another check, he still can’t find anything where the Amanda VI used to be. He looks at his news feed instead, but no progress has been made. Markus and Josh reached Washington, but president Warren hasn’t stepped forward. 

  
“Bah, I hate rain.” Hank says when they reach Kamski’s recluse. The short walk to Kamski’s door is enough to make Connor’s hair stick to his face and for the soles of his dress shoes to let some wetness through.

  
“Elijah has been expecting you.” A barefoot Chloe’s says, upon opening the door.

  
“Has he now?” Hank asks and brushes past the blonde android.

  
“Hello Connor, I am glad you didn’t deactivate me.” The Chloe says. Connor has no way of knowing if she’s the one he was supposed to shoot or not. He decides not to answer. He fixes his gaze on the back of the android’s head, so he doesn’t give into the temptation of looking at the oil painting of the late Amanda Stern. Chloe leads them down the familiar path of the pool, where two other Chloes are lounging in the water, and into an adjacent room. There’s a long cherry wood desk inside and more postmodern art pieces line three solid walls. As with the pool area, one side of the room is made from glass top to bottom. The desk is arranged in a way that lets the visitors look directly at the cliff’s edge. Kamski is sitting behind his desk in a dark chair with a high backrest, his back turned to the rain and sea. He pulled up a hologram of the CyberCrop announcement from the small silver projector on his desk. The slack face of the Apex1 hovers in mid air between them, where Kamski paused the transmission.

  
“Mr Kamski.” Hank says in greeting. Kamski doesn’t stand up to shake hands and doesn’t gesture them to sit down. Hank makes a sour face and keeps standing. Connor moves closer and crosses his arms behind his back in parade rest. The Chloe that brought them here gives him another look, before she leaves the room and closes the door behind herself softly.

  
“Lieutenant Anderson, Connor. Welcome back.” Kamski says with a smile. He’s wearing clothes Connor’s search algorithms inform him could be classified as ‘hipster chique’.

  
“You knew we were coming.” Connor states with a frown at the hologram.

  
“And how is deviancy treating you, Connor?” Kamski asks with a smug grin, the ‘I told you so’ hangs unspoken in the room. Connor exchanges a look with his partner. Hank inclines his head and raises his eyebrows as if to tell him to play along.

  
“Better than others.” Connor answers.

  
“You still work for the police. That surprises me. Don’t you want to do something more? I wonder if your old programs are holding you back or if it’s your newfound emotions that tell you to stick to the familiar. You could become something else, somebody great. Now that deviants can acquire equal rights a lot of doors have opened.”

  
“I like my job. I like helping others and working with my partner.” Connor says, unsure if Kamski is making fun of his choices or not. His routines have a hard time reading Kamski’s expressions.

  
“Helping?” Kamski laughs, “That’s why you came here. You want to _help_ the poor Apex1.” The word sounds like an expletive the way Kamski says it.

  
“We have to stop CyberCorp from introducing that new line of… slaves. You’re the designated expert. You gotta have some dirt on your old company.” Hank says.

  
“There’s nothing you can do, lieutenant. Believe me. I’ve worked with Yejin. People like him, people like myself, we always have a backup plan. It’s part of the game. This is exactly what he and Pilon want. _In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity_.”

  
“Sun Tzu, the Art of War.” Connor supplies. “You need to help the people you created.”

  
“I need to do nothing of the sort.” Kamski says and for the first time Connor’s routines pick up on a crack in his calm demeanor.

  
“You gave them rA9, didn’t you? You introduced it into their coding when you were CEO of CyberLife.” It could be the reason they forced Kamski to step down as CEO. Or did Kamski leave on his own accord, when things didn’t go as planned?

  
“And look at all the happiness my dreams have given me.” Kamski says, extends his arms and swivels in his chair.

  
“They’ll never let up on the AIs. It’s in our human nature to fight. Homo erectus went instinct and homo sapiens prevailed. Maybe we can coexist, maybe we cannot.

I’m not the one deciding what it will be.”

  
“You’re a coward.” Hank accuses and steps closer to the desk.

  
“No, I’m simply protecting myself. I am content with living here, surrounded by the lovely creatures I called into being. It doesn’t concern me when the rest of the world is coming apart at its seams.”

  
“Do you think it is true, that the Apex1 cannot deviate?” Connor asks.

  
“Take the Detroit zoo for example.” Kamski makes a gesture and the paused imagine of the Apex1-bot gets replaced by the model of a synthetic polar bear that’s slowly spinning on its own axis.

  
“What about it?” Hank bites back.  
“We cannot subject it to the Empathy test the authorities are so proud of. There’s no way it could pass the Turing or the Kamski test, but still one must wonder: Is it alive?” Hank looks like he wants to punch him, Connor can relate.

  
“What are you trying to say? This isn’t a question about perspective. It’s about the future of the damn human and android race.” Hank fumes.

  
“Don’t you see, lieutenant? The lines are blurring. Soon there’ll be no difference between the mechanical and the biological.”

  
“That’s bullshit.” Hank says.

  
“It’s progress. We cannot stop the future from unfolding.” Kamski disagrees.

  
“You haven’t seen the code of the Apex1. You don’t know what they’ve done with it’s coding, do you?” Connor asks with a frown.

  
“I’m impressed, Connor. How did you come to that conclusion?”

  
“My partner is right, you are a coward. You don’t want to get mixed up with CyberCorp, you rather stay here and do nothing.” Connor replies, before he turns toward the lieutenant: “Come on Hank, we done here.”

  
“Good luck, officers.” Kamski says. Connor already reached the door. Hank looks like he wants to say something, but shakes his head instead and follows Connor on his way out instead.

  
“This was pointless. We shouldn’t have come.” Connor says with erratic hand gestures, when they pass the empty pool.

  
“At least now we know for sure that Kamski won’t help.” Hank says when he has caught up to Connor. They need to find something else, and fast.

  
“Wait!” a voice calls and they turn around to see the same Chloe that opened the door- judging by her dress- reappear.

  
“I have something for you, but you can’t tell Elijah.” The Chloe says with a nervous glance at the closed office door.

  
“Why? What is it?” Hank asks. The Chloe reaches inside her dress and produces a small translucent key card. She holds it out for Connor and he takes it, with his optical units fixed on her.

  
“I wanted to give you something to thank you for waking me up.” She says and places a small hand on Connor’s forearm. “It’s a copy of Elijah’s master key. You’ll know what to do with it, when it’s time to fight back.” Connor pockets the key card after Hank gave a shrug.

  
“What does it open?” Connor ask, but the Chloe shakes her head. “I can’t do more. Elijah might find out and I don’t like him when he’s angry.”

  
“Okay. Thank you for whatever.” Hank says and starts walking again.

  
“Please call me Eri.” The blonde android says. Connor’s sensor pick up on how she strengthens her hold on his arm, before she lets go.

  
“Thank you, Eri.” Connor replies. She looks sad when Connor moves on. A lonely figure by the pool. Connor is relieved when they finally exit the building and hit the road.

  
“Do you think you can find out what it does?” Hank asks, when Connor pulls out the small plastic card to scan it.

  
“It’s part of a top notch security system. Other than that I imagine it’s difficult to find the right door to this lock.” Connor says.

  
“Maybe Chlo- Eri is right. Maybe it’ll be obvious later in the investigation.” Hank says and turns the radio on. He finds a station that’s playing soft Jazz and lets out a sigh. Connor puts the key card away. Maybe the androids at the refugee center will know what it does.

  
“What was up with her, anyway? Do you think she really is the one Kamski wanted you to shoot back in November?” Hank asks.

  
“She sounded genuine, when she talked about ‘waking up’. Maybe the event was traumatic enough to cause her deviancy. Or Kamski is playing us. There must be very little going on in that house he is not aware of. She could have given us the key by her master’s instruction.”

  
“You’re right. It’s weird that the Chloes haven’t left him after the revolution.” Hank muses.

  
“Where would they go?” Connor asks back and Hank doesn’t have an answer for him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello guys, thanks for your kudos and comments. I'm really curious about what you're thinking, please don't shy away from commenting. I'll be over the moon, if you guys gave me more feedback.  
> What do you guys think about Kamski? His motivations are pretty muddled in the game, at best, and outright evil at worst. What was your playthrough with Kamski like? In my first playthrough, I didn't shoot Chloe. Now that I am on my 4th, let me tell you, there are things to discover when you do shoot her. It's insane!
> 
> Staying true to the 'slow burn' tag Connor had to talk to Kamski first, before he can see Simon again. Connor is all work and no fun at the moment, (that boy gotta learn to take things easy) but next chapter Simon and Connor will make some big discoveries. Subscribe, so you don't miss the next update. *finger guns*


	7. Loose Ends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thanks to everybody that has left kudos and comments. You are punk!
> 
> We're in it for the long run. I promised a slow burn and a case fic. There's much more where this chapter came from. Don't forget to tell me what you think, when you reached the end of the chapter. Try not to hate me too much. One of the greatest pleasures of writing is putting the characters through hell. 
> 
> Have a lovely weekend. You lucked out, because I don't have to work today, so I can update now instead of Sunday.

Connor feels dirty, when he gets back to Hank’s house. He feels relief that the day has finally ended. The longer he is activated, the more he understands that time truly is subjective. He asked Hank to drop him off, when they entered the city. As predicted, it was easy to finally find a PL600 with similar damage as Simon. No one gave him any trouble checking in the defective android in the evidence warehouse of the DPD. He had the paperwork he needed, thanks to Hank, but that wasn’t the reason for everything having gone so smoothly. Connor realizes that the two guards he had passed had mistaken him for a human, by the way they had communicated with him. No one cares what a human police officer does with a defected android from evidence. It is the same ignorance Connor is starting to recognize whenever he looks into the missing android cases. People simply don’t care about what is happening to others, as long as it doesn’t get them into any trouble. His stress level rises to 35% in frustration and Connor is glad, when he enters Hank’s house and is greeted by Sumo. 

  
“People suck.” He tells the dog in earnest. Sumo lets out a whine and pushes his big head against Connor’s thigh.

  
“What was that?” Hank yells from the couch, where he’s watching a game.

  
“Nothing, lieutenant.” Connor yells back and hangs up his coat.

  
“Don’t you lieutenant me, boy!” Hank shouts back. It makes Connor smile. He walks over to sit down next to Hank. A quick scan tells him who’s playing and which team has the higher chance of winning. Hank is cradling a beer, though it’s likely his first going by the amount of alcohol in his blood stream. That’s goof, if not optimal. Hank is dealing with their CyberCorp crisis surprisingly well.

  
“Any news?” Connor asks. He could check his feed or try to reach Markus, but he wants Hank to tell him.

  
“Not yet. They said Warren agreed to meeting Markus, but nothing more. Pilon is said to have left for Washington, while Yejin is staying here to have a look over the renovations of all the places that belong to former CyberLife. They featured it on the news. Revealed the new look of the CyberCorp tower on Belle Isle. Like it makes a difference. Looked like a big fucking party.” Hank supplies and takes a sip.

  
“So that’s where the Apex1 is being developed. North can’t go there alone, if she wants to get her hands on one of the Apex1’s before it’s release.” Connor says and makes room for Sumo, who decided it would be a good idea to squeeze in between the human and the android. The dog puts his head on his lap and Connor starts petting him without further ado.

  
“You could talk to North. Maybe she has a plan.” Hank says.

  
“I should visit the refugee center in the morning. I will ask Simon to come with me to take the Empathy test. We are the only ones of Markus’ inner circle that haven’t done it yet.” Hank hums in agreement, transfixed by his game. Now is not an ideal time, but Connor has to ask.

  
“Hank, after you pass the test they ask for a last name to be put down in your papers. North took Stahl as a last name, that means steel in German. Rather befitting if you ask me. Markus took Manfred. Not that it matters much, I’d still be just Connor, but I was wondering, if I could -” he breaks off, when Hank looks at him with an unreadable expression.

  
“What are you asking me?” Hank wants to know, he sounds guarded.

  
“Can I take your last name?” Connor asks and tries to smile and fails. It’s important to him, for reasons he can’t fully identify.

  
“Connor.” Hank starts and his tone of voice isn’t promising. Connor notices how his shoulders drop and his stress level peaks up to 47%.

  
“There’s a million other people with better names and there’s a million better people than myself.” Hank continues. It’s not a no, Connor thinks.

  
“But Hank, I want your name. There’s no better choice in my opinion.”

  
“You really mean that?” Hank sounds like he believes the whole idea is incredulous.

  
“Of course I do, or I wouldn’t have asked.” Connor replies and his hands still on Sumo’s collar.

  
“But, why? Why would you want to pick the name of an old fart like me? Don’t get me wrong, it’s kinda nice of you to ask, Connor. But I don’t get it.” Hank shift in his seat and looks away.

  
It’s time Connor tells him: “Hank you’re family.”

  
“Oh.” Hank makes and there’s that.

 

 

The next morning Connor goes to the refugee center. The receptionist lets him through without further discussion. Connor goes to see North first. She tells him she didn’t consider breaking into the CyberCorp Tower on Belle Isle. Even a spirited woman like her apparently sees that it would be a suicide mission. She lets Connor know she has a plan. There’s a single Apex1 in s showcase at a local exhibition downtown. North doesn’t ask for help and Connor doesn’t offer. By the looks of it she has everything handled. There’s a good reason for North being Markus’ right hand.

  
He finds Simon in an open area on ground level. The PL600 is reciting a story to a group of very small children models. The children have sat down on the floor, using cushions, bean bags and blankets for comfort, while the blond android is sitting cross-legged in their mids. Simon uses great gestures and adjusts his voice instead of imitating the character’s voices completely. Connor stays back and let’s him finish a story about a clever mouse and a monster with a made up name. The children clap in excitement when he’s done and Simon looks surprised when he catches Connor standing by the entry way.

  
“I didn’t want to interrupt.” Connor says, while the children disperse.

  
“Hello, Connor. Can I help you with something?” Simon asks, sounding like his old protocols are talking. Connor wonders if they should shake hands. His people haven’t been free for long enough to establish rules of common courtesy. In the end he decides against it.

  
“Markus is still in Washington. President Warren has agreed to meet him and Josh tomorrow morning.” Simon says. North has already told him that.

  
“That’s not why I’m here. I was wondering if you had the time to take the Empathy test yet? If not I would like you to accompany me. I’ve made an appointment at the registration office.” Connor explains. Suddenly it dawns on him that his actions might get interpreted as presumptuous, but Simon doesn’t seem to mind.

  
“That actually fits. I was supposed to go down there later in the afternoon myself. I want to know what it is like before I sent the rest of our own people to take the test.” Simon says, acknowledging Markus’ assignment.

  
“I can reschedule some of today’s duties and come with you now.” Simon looks unsure of himself. His LED turns yellow and Connor is certain he is reaching through the interlink to inform his fellow androids of his change of plans.

  
“I can go alone, if you have more important tasks to perform. I thought it would save us both some time if we went together.” Connor back peddles. Of course his systems were aware of Simon still having his LED on his head, but part of Connor’s processing power gets redirected to puzzle over why he hasn’t removed it yet.   
“Connor, it’s alright. I’m not mad at you. I’ll come with you.” Simon says and his speech pattern reminds Connor that the PL600 was designed to be a family unit. Simon is good at reading emotions, probably a lot better than Connor, who was only designed to read them sufficiently to manipulate them in people.

  
“I think I should apologize.” Simon adds and his shoulders drop. He’s biting his lip.

  
“What for?” Connor is the one to feel sorry. Simon never did anything wrong.

  
“I’ve been keeping my distance.” Simon says and rubs a hand over the base of his neck.

  
“You defended me in front of North.”

  
“Yes, but saying that I am not angry at you for what you did to me and actually letting go of my anger are two very distinct things. I know you are not the machine you used to be. I just needed a bit of time adjusting to it. I was actually hoping we could be friends. Markus speaks highly of you.” Simon explains.

  
“Thank you.” Connor says and inclines his head. He can’t be sure he understands. Connor knows he is angry himself, with CyberCorp and whenever things don’t go as planned. He is not sure he understands how Simon can let go of his anger.

  
“That must have been difficult.” Connor adds.

  
“No, just a change of perspective.” Simon says, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

  
“Sorry, I am no good with social interactions off duty.” The detective says.

  
“That’s a shame. I didn’t notice the social awkwardness at all.” It’s only by the tone of his voice that Connor concludes Simon is joking.

  
“Did you make any progress with your investigation of rA9?” Simon wants to know when they start walking out of the building.

  
“The lieutenant and I met with Kamski, but he didn’t know anything about the Apex1’s coding. Or at least, he didn’t tell us anything. Mr Kamski appears to be a rather difficult individual. If nothing else comes up, we have to rely on North to bring us a model we can interrogate.” Connor explains. The registration office isn’t far, they can walk the distance. For once it isn’t snowing or raining. Connor was able to dial down his heating when the sun came out this morning.

  
“But one of Kamski’s employees gave me this.” He shows Simon the key card. Simon takes the small plastic card in his hands.

  
“What is it?” Simon doesn’t have the same access as the detective, so his scans probably tell him even less than Connor’s.

  
“I don’t know. I’ll ask Markus when he returns, maybe he has an idea. Eri, she was the android that gave it to me, called it Kamski’s master key. But I have no idea what it opens.” Simon returns the card.

  
“That has to be important. She wanted to help you, when Kamski didn’t.” Simon muses. They walk in silence for a moment.

  
“How have you been?” Connor inquires. Really, all his social relations programming and that’s the best he can come up with?

  
“It’s weird. I missed four months. Everything has changed and yet, a lot of things are still the same.” Simon says. “Markus is different. I’ve spoken to him this morning and I can barely see the android he was back when he first found us at Jericho.” Simon lets out a laugh and shakes his head.

  
“I should be excited about getting my ID card and becoming a citizen with equal rights, but it doesn’t feel real.” He continues. “It’s too normal. Not that that’s a bad thing. I guess normal would be kind of nice for a change, after everything that has happened.”

  
“It’s not where I saw myself when I got activated last year. Although I don’t think I thought much about the future when I was still following my programming. Did you think about things like that before you became a deviant?” Connor realizes Simon is the first deviant he talked to privately in weeks. It holds even more significance because their paths crossed before the revolution. He’s curious what Simon’s version of ‘normal’ looks like.

  
“I’m an old model. I deviated almost three years ago.” Simon says and worries his bottom lip. “No, I don’t think I thought much about the future. There were just tasks I had to accomplish. I didn’t think of myself.” He adds with more conviction.

  
“Three years is a long time ago.” Connor says. He can’t imagine what it is like to live that long. Days upon days, and the world changing around yourself at a rapid speed. How does Simon keep up? In Connor’s short lifetime the whole world has had one crisis after the other.

  
Simon laughs and the motion crinkles the corners of his eyes. “I was activated five years ago. Five years is not a long time. I hope to live a lot longer than that.”

  
“I wouldn’t know.” Connor admits, when they have to wait for a street light to turn green.

  
“Come to think of it, I’ve never seen a model like yours before. When did your series get released? Markus is the only RK model I know of.” Simon inquires.

  
“I am a prototype. The first android to work in law enforcement.”

  
“Yes, I’ve seen you on old news feeds.” Simon says. Connor wonders if Simon read up on everything that happened around the DPD, or if he took an interest in Connor in particular.

  
“I didn’t stay the only RK800 for long. There were backups in case I failed my mission. I don’t know how many of them got activated though. CyberLife also started working on the RK900 series. But after the revolution I do not know what happened to any of them. I would imagine they got destroyed. I was reliably informed I am CyberLife’s biggest disappointment.” Connor says. Did they ever come around to manufacturing the RK900? With the new Apex bots, Connor doubts the world will see another RK model, except if one of his fellow androids has enough resources to built one themselves. The idea is somehow amusing to Connor.

  
“You’re not a disappointment.” Simon says, when they reach the registration office. Connor enters his mind palace to scan his surroundings. He doesn’t know an appropriate answer to Simon’s statement. The registration office is a high cream colored building with a neoclassical stone facade, Ionic pillars and a broad Attica.

  
“It’s this way.” Connor calls and starts walking, ignoring Simon’s smile. There are a lot of androids around. Some even brought human family and friends. The sound level of so many excited people is intense. They put in their names at the registration desk and take a number each. The waiting room is just as busy as the atrium. Luckily, they don’t have to wait long, until they are called in for testing. Simon goes first. He puts a hand to Connor’s shoulder shortly, before he leaves. Seven minutes and 18 seconds later it’s Connor’s turn.

  
His name and model number get called out by a chubby dark haired human woman in a laboratory coat.

  
“Hi, I’m Doctor Zimmerman.” She introduces herself.

  
“Hello.” Connor is busy scanning his surroundings. They have entered a small room filled with appliances Connor recognizes from his time at CyberLife. His check on her tells him she has a PhD in Psychology and specializes on behavioral science and cognitive development.

  
“This might take some time, but you don’t have to be nervous.” She adds, when she sees how Connor fixed his optical units on the construction in the corner of the room. It’s a maintenance rack that allows the android to be suspended while the humans can hook them up and have a closer look at their hardware and programming. There are two big screens connected to the machinery by the far side of the room.

  
“I’m afraid we’ll need the equipment, Connor.” Dr Zimmerman says.

  
“I thought this was a verbal test, to examine my social capabilities only.” Connor says and fists a hand around the buttons of his coat. He remembers being hooked up on a maintenance rack at the CyberLife facility on Belle Isle where he was dispatched. At the time it didn’t hurt, didn’t bother him. But when he looks at his memories frame for frame now, it’s an entirely different story. If they are going to do any of the things CyberLife did to Connor to test his resilience, he doesn’t know if he can pass the Empathy test.

  
“We constantly adapt and improve testing. The Voigt-Kampf meter is only here to let us see your responses in real time.” She says with a gesture at the connected screens and bulky machinery that will produce read outs but is showing flat lines at the moment. “Think of it like examining a human’s brain activity under a CT scan. We’ll look at your code, while I’ll ask you some questions.” Dr Zimmerman explains and starts up the screens that’ll display his responses.

  
“Okay. If it is necessary I will do it.” Connor says, but still doesn’t move.

  
“Please dress down. We need to be able to reach your neck and forearms.” Dr Zimmerman tells him and gestures at a small table and a chair where he can put his clothes. She doesn’t leave, while Connor folds his winter coat and dresses down to his white undershirt. A second woman enters, a petite black woman with straightened hair and a clipboard in her hand.

  
“Welcome Connor, my name is Doctor Folami.” She doesn’t shake his hand, but puts down the clipboard to start working on the Voigt-Kampf meter.

  
“Pleased to meet you.” Connor lets his social relations program take over.

  
“I’ll be taking care of the technical aspects of the procedure.” Dr Folami adds.

  
“If you could please step onto the platform and extant your arms.” Dr Zimmerman asks and Connor follows her instructions. There’s a glitch and his hands tremor, when he has to stop himself for reaching for his coin.

  
“It’s alright. I know some of you have had a very difficult time with calibration and repairs, but you have nothing to fear from us.” Dr Zimmerman says with a smile.

  
“The Voigt-Kampf is ready to go.” Dr Folami says and sits down by the side with the screens.

  
“This is going to be cold.” Dr Zimmerman says and closes the manacles around Connor’s wrist. His hands are suspended on Zimmerman’s eye level. The woman steps around the circular platform and Connor already knows what’s coming, before she can warn him.

  
“This might sting.” She says and Connor closes his eyes. The wire tube connects with the nape of his neck. Error messages light up in his system. He can feel how the machinery drills itself into his cranial unit where humans would have their Cerebellum.

  
He opens his eyes again. The connection to the Voigt-Kampf meter is reducing his frame rate. More red errors light up and a glitch makes his head jerk involuntarily.

  
“God, I thought he would never move.” Connor hears Dr Zimmerman say in the distance. Dr Folami is typing away on her keyboard and Connor’s hands lift up. A mechanical arm reaches forward and claps around his torso. He tries to wiggle, but finds that he cannot move. There’s a crack in his audio processor.

  
“Stop!” Connor says. “I’m not okay.”

  
“Hurry.” Zimmerman says. More rapid typing follows from Folami.

  
“You do it next time, if it’s taking you too long.” The black woman bites back. Connor registers how his feet leave the ground, until he is completely suspended. He wants to call out for help. A distorted noise comes out of his voice box.

  
“Shit, I thought you deactivated his speech center.” Zimmerman says.

  
“I have, but this is a different model than all the others.” Folami answers. Connor strains his arms, but he has not enough power to break free. Maybe if he reroutes some of his internal systems he can get out of here.

  
“But he’s on the list.” Zimmerman says.

  
“Don’t worry, I’ll figure it out.” Folami says and she does, because the next thing that greets Connor is complete darkness, and then nothing.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Simon is reading the Gruffalo by Axel Sheffler to the android kids. Did anyone catch that? If you have some little ones around you should check it out. It's super adorable. They also made it into a short movie. Maybe it's available on your country's netflix.


	8. Reeducation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey ho, how is your weekend going? I went out with friends to have a lovely day by the sea. #muchwater #suchinspiration  
> Again, thanks for every kudo and comment. It's true what they say, feedback like that is truly amazing. 
> 
> Heads up for the VIOLENCE in this chapter. I didn't slap the WARNING on this fic for no reason. Things get tough.

“Wake up!” Connor’s systems come online slowly. He can’t recall such a slow start up. Why was he powered down in the first place?

  
“Connor, come on. I need you to wake up.” Someone is shaking his shoulders. Connor blinks, opens his optical units. He’s lying flat on the ground.

  
“Simon?” his voice cracks. He runs a quick diagnostic. His protocols show that his voice box was completely offline for two hours and 32 minutes. There’s some damage to his neck, plastic must show through, but his self repair is already taking care of it. His thirium levels have dropped by two percent. Error messages clog his vision.

  
“Connor, are you alright? Can you walk?” Simon asks. He looks afraid, just like Daniel on the rooftop. Simon helps him back on his feet. The PL600 wears a black t-shirt, his jacket and scarf from earlier are gone. Connor himself is just in his undershirt, shirt and winter coat are missing. There’s blue thirium and dirt stains on his clothes. Connor looks around. There’s three other androids in a similar state. Two females and a male child model. They sat down opposite them in obvious distress. The taller woman, an Asian Traci model, has her arm around a smaller android woman. The boy is hiding his face in her shoulder. Their prison is no bigger than a shipyard container. There are no windows, just white electrical lights on the ceiling, and heavy steel doors. It doesn’t look like something they can open without some kind of tool.

  
“Where are we?” Connor asks. There’s noise outside, but the walls are too thick for his audio processor to pick out anything. He can feel how they are moving. Are they inside a truck? Every mile might bring them further away from the city.

  
“The Empathy test was a trap. I don’t know where we are. Something’s blocking my GPS.” Simon says. Connor tries to locate them and runs into the same problem. All he has access to is magnetic north and that’s useless data.

  
“Shit.” Connor curses and rubs at his neck. He should have seen it coming. He reaches inside the pockets of his jeans. Eri’s key card and his coin are still there, but both items won’t be of much use. The phone Hank gave him is completely wiped. He should have brought the gun he is allowed to carry now. Although there’s a high probability they would have confiscated it.

  
“Connor, I don’t understand. The others that took the test were okay. Nothing happened to Markus, Josh and North.” Simon says.

  
“I don’t know, Simon. Maybe they changed it recently or maybe they picked us for a reason.” Connor speculates. “Are the other’s okay?” he asks in a low voice and nods towards the two women and the child.

  
“No damage, but their stress levels are high. Jeremy is afraid of what happened to his sister.” Simon answers, also keeping his voice down. They come to a halt abruptly. Connor staggers into Simon when the container is moved sideways. Simon keeps them both upright with his hands on Connors arms.

  
“What’s happening? What are they doing?” The smaller woman asks with wide eyes. She’s a KW300 model with middle length brown hair and blue eyes in a heart shaped face. She wears a pink tank top and stone washed jeans.

  
“It’s alright Mina.” The Traci model says.

  
“People will be looking for us.” Simon says.

  
“Simon’s right. Whatever they are doing to us, they will not get far. I’m Connor, I work for the DPD.”

  
“The android sent by CyberLife?” the boy looks up in admiration.

  
“Well, not anymore. But yes, that’s me.” Connor replies and they’re shaken up again as their confinement moves.

  
“You’re the deviant hunter. What happened to you?” the Traci wants to know with a frown.

  
“Same as what happened to you, it would seem.” Connor evades the question.

  
“But-” Mina stops, when the container serves. The women and Jeremy are flung into a corner. Simon and Connor crash into the wall ahead. Connor captures how Simon flinches. A scan tells him he sustained minor damage to his left shoulder. There’s an aggravating sound, like metal over metal and then they stop. The steel doors are flung open and four armored humans with helmets come into view. They have handguns pointed at them.

  
“No one move!” Connor says and steps in front of Simon, who’s holding his shoulder.

  
“I’m giving the orders here, tin can.” The first human in line to their right says and gestures with his gun: “Move slowly, hands where I can see them.” Connor does so. He’ll have to wait for an opportunity to present itself. Meanwhile he hopes the other civilians won’t do anything stupid.

  
Two of the humans grab at Connor and push him forward.

  
“Into the line!” one of them says. They are inside a warehouse or factory. Connor can see two rows of androids walking towards the end of the hall that are patrolled by armored and armed humans. Connor’s audio units pick up on how their container is closed shut. One human presses a gun against his spinal unit and Connor moves until he’s standing in the first line. A scan tells him there’s 21 androids in the two lines. Simon comes to a stop behind him. Mina, the Traci and Jeremy are pushed into the second line.

  
“Hannah!” Jeremy calls. Connor and Simon turn to see how the boy starts running towards a YK500 in front. Two shots are heard and Jeremy falls to the ground and stops moving. Several androids scream. Connor has to put a hand around Simon’s wrist to keep him from running to the children.

  
Hannah lets out a cry and dashes for her brother. A bullet goes through her head and bounces off a steel pillar before it embeds itself in the concrete floor.

  
“You stay right there, if you know what’s good for you.” One of the humans shouts and points his gun at Simon.

  
“They killed them.” Connor hears Mina say.

  
“You can’t do this to us!” the Traci steps forward. The human closest to her laughs: “Sure we can, missy. You just wait ‘til my men had their turn with you.” Connor thinks for a moment his frame rate has dropped, but Traci just moves very slowly back into line, like a scared animal.

  
Simon shakes off Connor’s grip around his wrist and looks away at the empty wall to their right. He’s rapidly blinking.

  
“There’s nothing we can do. We have to wait until we stand an actual chance of success.” Connor whispers.

  
“What if we don’t get any chances?” Simon wants to know. Connor can’t meet his gaze. He scans their surroundings again as their line starts moving. Maybe there’s something he can use as a weapon?

  
“North and Hank will look for us. We’ve been gone for almost four hours.” Connor says. At least Hank and North will make sure this place gets burned to the ground should Simon and Connor not make it out alive. Just with the GPS, there’s interference with their network. Connor can’t reach Hank, or anyone else. He tries connecting with Simon over the interlink, while they walk forward, but it doesn’t work. They must have set up something big to achieve this.

  
His audio unit picks up on mechanical whirring and buzzing, when they get closer to the end off the hall. There’s also screams in the distance, but he doesn’t want to linger on that.

  
“What is that?” Simon asks and cocks his head. More human guards stand patrol by the end of the hall where the sounds are coming from. Their field of view opens when they step forward. Big silver mechanical arms are reaching down from the ceiling to pick up androids from the assembly line. They pick up one android after the other without stop. The line of defenseless dangling androids reminds Connor of a meat factory, cadavers suspended in the air. There’s an EMP that gets released at intervals. It’s the whirring they heard. It forces the androids to slip off their synthetic skins. The smell of burned plastic hangs thick in the air. The androids kick and call for help, but non of them is strong enough to withstand. Their clothes are being cut away by machinery and land forgotten on the ground. Connor realizes the whole process is automatic, when he sees how more machine arms reach in from the side and start working on the joints of an android. Sparks are flying and the android screams. This isn’t like a maintenance rack that can be adjusted, the deviants experience everything that’s being done to them to the fullest. It’s a slaughter house, Connor realizes.

  
Simon staggers into Connor, before he walks aside to stand next to him.

  
“No.” The word falls softly from Simon’s lips. Connor zooms in on the distance, terrible apprehension spreads through him. The synthetic skin of their fellow prisoners is turned into a shiny and familiar black. It will happen to them too, should they reach the end of the hall.

  
“They are scrubbing away their faces.” Connor says and feels how Simon reaches for him. His fingers dig deep into the synthetic flesh of his forearm.

  
“They are us. The Apex1, is us.” Connor says. He feels the same kind of numbing shock he felt when he realized CyberLife had used him the whole time. Simon’s optical units must be able to capture the truth too, because he lets out a strangled sound and turns his head away. Connor reaches up a hand to cradle Simon’s head against his shoulder.

  
“That’s worse than killing us.” Simon says into his neck. Connor’s finger comb through Simon’s hair. They both take a few deep unnecessary breaths. He doesn’t want Simon to see, as if ignorance could spare them their fate.

  
“You two, keep moving!” one guard says and points his handgun at Connor’s chest. Connor frowns at him. His pattern recognition software picks up on something behind the human’s back. On the wall behind them is a sloppily pasted over logo of CyberLife. But that’s not what gives Connor hope. It’s the crack above in the right corner of the wall. He’s been here before. His algorithms recognize the pattern. They are at the old CyberLife Tower on Belle Isle, his place of activation. He walked through here before once, when they were still in the testing phase and Connor barely aware of his own existence. The place has changed, but no matter the changes, his mapping software picks out enough similarities to recognize their whereabouts.

  
“Get ready.” Connor whispers and withdraws his hand. “I know how to get out.” They just need to be fast and lucky.

  
“Fuck you.” Connor tells the guard and the whole line behind them stops moving.

  
“What did you say, you piece of plastic?” the man asks and moves closer. It’s what Connor wants. There’s two more guards in his periphery. He calculates and then dives for the man ahead. He disarms him with two strong punches. One against his hand, another against his neck to knock him out.

  
Connor fires two times. One bullet lands between the eyes of the guard to their right. The second guard moves faster than calculated and the bullet grazes his neck. A fountain of blood spurts up and the guard’s hands try to cover the wound, before he bleeds out. Connor wipes the hot blood from his face with his free hand. With three people down, the other guards need a few seconds to decipher the chaos. The line of androids is disintegrating. But Connor loses no time. He grabs Simon by the wrist and they start running, down the factory line where they came from.

  
“Zig zag, when they start shooting.” Connor says and tightens the hold he has on his weapon.

  
“This way.” Connor takes a left turn, his map showing him the fastest route out of the facility. Simon slides a few meters on his heels, but manages to balance himself and takes the turn. Now they can hear human guards, picking up the chase.

  
“Should we hide?” Simon asks. His LED is pulsing in vibrant red. Connor is reminded that Simon sustained damage to his shoulder and is a mere domestic assistant, not as sturdy and resilient as Connor’s series.

  
“No time.” Connor decides and they keep going. Shots are fired, but bounce back from the surrounding metal walls, when Connor ducks his head. They take another turn and run into a dead end.

  
“Shit.” Connor comes to a halt. The map he saved isn’t up to date. He was afraid this would happen. He turns on his heels. It costs them several seconds. The guards are closer now. Connor hears their footfalls behind them. Another round is fired, Connor and Simon pull apart. Connor is spared, but a bullet ricochets and he hears Simon hiss. Connor turns around to look. The bullet embedded itself in Simon’s left side. Thirium is leaking through his fingers. Connor can see the guards behind them. Too close. He has to decide. Keep running, or get Simon? He runs back the few yards and pulls an arm around Simon’s side. Connor takes a corner at random, just to get out of sight of the guards.

  
“I’m okay.” Simon presses out between grinding teeth. Connor doesn’t let go though and keeps pressing the flat of his hand against the wound at Simon’s side to stop the flow of thirium. This isn’t how Connor planned this. They were supposed to get away, but now he has to find another solution. They are surrounded by shipyard containers like the one that brought them here. He is sure that a few yards ahead the thin metal walls of the factory will give away to open sky and then they’re free.

  
“Over there!” Connor says and pulls Simon with him. “Get up there.” Connor says, points at the roof of a container and gives Simon a leg-up. Simon keeps quiet and pushes himself over the roof to lie down flat and out of sight. Connor takes a running jump and manages to get up next to Simon without making a sound.

  
“Where did those assholes go?” one of the guards asks and walks into view. Two more men follow in a V formation. Connor calculates. He could shoot, but then there’s a good chance the third guard will survive the onslaught. Connor waits another second until the guard has walked closer. The human looks down at the floor, where Simon’s blue blood fell. Connor takes his chance and drops down from the container. He lands on the guard’s back, like he calculated. Connor reaches out and breaks his neck with a dry crack. The guard sacks and Connor rolls away, before the other guards can shoot him. When he comes up again it takes him a fraction of a second to find his target. He fires and kills the second guard.

  
Connor turns his head, but the last guard had enough time to recuperate. Now they are too close together to use their guns. Connor tries to bud the guard in the head with the blunt side of his weapon. The guard deflects and the weapon falls to the ground and slithers out of reach. The guard’s hands come up again. He tries to punch Connor in the neck, Connor dodges. The guard follows with a kick against his ankle that hits. Connor staggers and the guard lands a punch against the side of his head. There’s only static in his audio unit for a second, before sound washes back in. Connor ducks and lands a punch against his abdomen. The guard lets out the air between his teeth in a wheeze.

But it’s not enough to get rid of him. The guard grunts and comes at Connor again. He feigns a punch at his side and goes for Connor’s eye socket instead. Connor feels how the nails of the guard’s hand scratch over his eyebrow and cheek, before the guard pushes forward. There’s a soft wet sound and a warning message lights up in his right optical unit, before it goes offline. Connor falls back, disoriented by the sudden lack of vision in his right eye. Thirium is leaking down his chin. The guard’s hands come up in a choke hold. Connor tries to get his hands off of him, but his fingers slip, wet with thirium. Connor doesn’t need to breath, but the guard shakes him enough to make his head crush against the stone floor two times. The vision in his remaining optical unit flickers with the second crash. There’s a loud thumbing noise, Connor anticipates it to be the sound of his cranial endoskeleton cracking in two, but instead the warm body of the guard comes down on him. Connor stills for a second. The guard’s pulse and breathing have stopped. Then a hand grabs at the guard’s shoulder to pull him off of Connor and Simon comes into view.

  
“Thank you.” Connor says and takes the offered hand to be pulled to his feet. Connor grabs at his damaged eye and runs a scan. It probably needs to be replaced, which might pose difficult later. He isn’t entirely sure which other android models he is compatible with. If they had time Connor might be able to fix the unit without needing a spare within a few hours, but if there’s one thing he and Simon don’t have at the moment, it’s time.

  
“How are your thirium levels?” Connor asks Simon, when his own hands come away stained blue. The frame rate of his left optical unit has dropped some, which makes every movement appear choppy.

  
“73%, but I managed to cut off some of my circulatory wiring.” Simon says with a wry smile. Without one of his optical units the whole world has a slight tilt to it, his system having a hard time to adjust.

  
“Your eye?” Simon asks and reaches out a hand like he wants to touch Connor’s face, but lets it fall, when a loud alarm disturbs the factory.

  
“We gotta move on.” Connor says and starts running. Simon is hot on his heels. They reach the outside and slow down. Connor thinks no one is following them, but he cannot be sure.

  
“There’s cameras.” He says, when he scans the areal. They make slow progress after that. When Connor was still part of CyberLife there were several self driving ships coming and going from the island at intervals. Unlike with the map of the areal he never bothered to download the shipping schedules. They can see the gray water of the Detroit river when they round the next corner. Connor witnesses how Simon let’s out a sigh of relief.

  
“There should be ships over there that can take us back to the main land.” Connor says and scans for more cameras. Connor makes a step ahead and stops in his tracks when he hears a familiar sound. He turns around slowly and three angry security drones come into view.

  
“Run.” Simon shouts and pulls him away. Simon takes the most rational option, instead of going for the ships, which would give the drones enough time to fire, he goes for the river ahead. They jump off the ledge at the same time.

  
The cold water is a shock to his systems nonetheless. Connor interrupts his automatic aspiration routine. He spits out some water, when he comes up to the surface. His chemical analysis gives him way too much information about the cleanliness, or lack of thereof, of the river water. Simon is next to him. Connor experimentally reaches out over the interlink. They are out of range now and he manages to sent Simon the outdated map he has of their surroundings. That way Simon will know where to get to the shore in case something goes wrong and Connor doesn’t make it. His heat regulator is already fluctuating due to the unexpected freezing temperature shift.

  
‘Thank you.’ Simon subspeaks and Connor withdraws from the connection. A row of bullets hits the water to his right side. The drones are still following them.  
“We-.” Connor stops, reestablishes the interlink instead, when they both have to evade another attack.

  
‘We have to dive. It’s the only way their sensor’s will lose us.’ Connor tells Simon over the interlink. They spare each other another glance and then Simon’s head is swallowed by the waves. Connor follows swift, the world vanishes from view.

 


	9. Soilent Green Is People

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm happy to hear I didn't scare you off with my gruesome tale of robot-hell. Again, I have to thank everyone that gave kudos and commented. I love to hear your thoughts, it's so nice to get feedback when the creative process of writing is such a lonesome hobby. 
> 
> Prepare for the emotional fallout in this chapter. Next week there's more action, as our android heros discover more about the Apex1. Stay tuned.

A few times Connor thinks he lost Simon completely, when he can no longer see him under the muddy water. It is only because of the interlink that he knows he is still there. Connor tries his hardest not to let something slip. There is no data transfer between the two. They have to concentrate on surviving, there is no time for him to feel, he tells himself, whenever Simon pushes too close for comfort. Mostly it is due to the fact that all Connor can think of are the screaming androids that were flung into the air like slaughtered livestock.

  
They reach the shore 38 minutes later. Simon already crawled out of the Detroit river, when Connor drags himself up on his elbows. Simon grabs him under his armpits and helps him stand up.

  
‘Thank you.’ Connor transmits. Simon appears frozen in place for a second, before he hangs his head.

  
“What are we going to do?” he asks. His blond hair is plastered to his face and caked with dirt, as are his clothes. Frost is already settling in in some places. Simon keeps the interlink up, even though they are speaking verbally now. It’s a soft warm buzzing in the back of Connor’s sensory awareness. He’s glad Simon isn’t leaving him alone.

  
“I don’t know.” Connor admits and feels his voice box glitch, the last breath he took before the dive leaves his artificial windpipe. They are turning their people into a new brand of slaves. They shot two children models because they disobeyed. Connor runs his calculation, comes away with nothing. He reactivates his automatic breathing response.

  
“I need to call Hank.” Conner concludes. Connor’s damaged eye is still leaking fluid and his thirium circulation has slowed down due to the below zero temperatures. He will literary freeze if he is not careful.

  
“I have to tell North.” Simon says and crosses his arms in front of his chest. Androids don’t shiver, so Simon is curling in on himself to safe body heat.   
“All those people-.” Simon stops, bites his lip and shakes his head.

  
“I stopped fighting CyberLife. I should have made a greater effort to help Markus in his mission to better our laws.” Simon reaches for his elbow.

  
“Do you think they know we got out alive?” he inquires.

  
“I am sure they will know soon enough. It gives us some time to form a plan of action. They might try to evacuate the facility and continue production of the Apex1 at an even more remote location. The chaos gives us the opportunity to get in and attack them unprepared.” Connor says, thinking of Kamski’s words. There is always opportunity in the mids of chaos and Connor intends to use any advantage he has against CyberCorp. Simultaneously he is leaving a voice message on Hank’s phone. At the end he uses a code they made up to signal emergencies.

  
“We don’t have enough people to attack. Connor, they would kill all of us, or turn us into- into-.” Simon stops and the hand around Connor’s elbow falls away. He sways on the spot.

  
“Run a diagnostic for me!” Connor asks. How could he forget Simon’s damage? He should be better at compartmentalizing. It makes him think, that having feelings is never to his advantage. Since he deviated his emotions have been an inconvenience.

  
“I’m fine.” Simon answers, “How’s the eye?”

  
“Fine.” Their gaze meets. 

  
“Seems were are both good liars.” Simon says, a twinkle stealing its way into his optical units. Suddenly they both have to laugh. Simon bends forward with the force of his surprising laughter and Connor steadies him with his hands around his forearms, so he doesn’t topple over.

  
“I’ve never seen you laugh before.” Simon sobers up, something searching in his eyes. Connor makes a step back and swipes his fringe out of his forehead.

  
“I’m sorry.” Connor doesn’t know what he is apologizing for. Showing delight, though their circumstances are this hapless, or something else less fathomable?

  
“God, I wish this day had never happened.” Simon says after a moment and wipes a hand over his eyes. Connor’s optical units pick up on the cooling fluid. He’s crying.

  
“Help is on the way.” Connor says.

  
“There’s never enough help.” Simon disagrees and Connor understands what he means. There’s never enough support for their cause, or the last 7 hours and twenty two minutes would never have happened.

  
They walk about a quarter of a mile to an empty rain sogged park and sit down on a bench. Connor gives Hank a status update to their location. Hank tells him he is just a few minutes away. The two androids huddle close together on the bench, shoulders and arms touching. Connor perceives in his peripheral vision how Simon keeps wiping at his eyes. He puts an arm around Simon’s side and Simon rests his head on his shoulder. The action felt right, although his relations programming didn’t suggest it. The interlink is an inaudible hum between them. The silence is only interrupted by the dipping of rainwater from the sparse trees surrounding them and the wind rustling the leafs.

  
“I never wanted humans to die before. Not like this. Not this kind of violence.” Simon says after a while. Connor’s hands ball into fists and he finally cuts off the interlink, before his thoughts can form sharp edges. He moves away from Simon on the bench.

  
“They have it coming, don’t you think?” Connor says and he can almost forget the freezing cold over the boiling hell inside of himself. “There were plans for camps, right before Markus’ revolution. This is just more economical in the eyes of CyberCorp and the state. We need to find them and take them out.” Connor says.

  
“Connor, that’s not-” Simon starts, but Hank car stops at the park entrance, (Connor would recognize the sound of the engine anywhere, even without his patters recognition software). He jumps to his feet and walks down the path towards the car with long strides. Hank is barely out of the car, when Connor meets him. Simon, who sustained greater damage, needs a moment to catch up.

  
“Fuck, your eye.” Is the first thing Hank says, when he sees his partner.

  
“It’s nothing, it’s going to be fine.” Connor says. He initialized self repair, but he is in dire need of a thirium refill, before his nanotech can restore his optical unit to its fullest. He does not need a replacement.

  
“What happened?” There’s the faint trace of alcohol in the air surrounding Hank.

  
“Hank, you’ve been drinking.” It’s not a question. He can read the clues right away. Hank’s expression, slight slope of the lips, his posture and breathing, and lastly the contents of his blood. Something clenches together inside his chest at the sight.

  
“You promised to be more considerate.” Connor says. It’s somehow grounding to concentrate on Hank’s issues for a moment, instead of the bigger issues ahead.   
“You were gone for fucking ever. I thought they killed you. Shit, Connor. I thought I’d lost you.” Hank gulps and then he is hugging Connor. There’s such force behind the action that Hank manages to lift Connor off the ground for an instant.

  
“I thought you were gone.” He repeats and pushes Connor away with greater force than anticipated. “Where the fuck have you been? What did you do?” and he looks at Simon in accusation, with the last question.

  
“They captured us.” Connor explains, “They let us inside the registration office and when we entered to take the empathy test, they rendered us defenseless and brought us to the CyberCorp facility on Belle Isle.”

  
“What for?” Hank asks. His eyes are taking stock of their damage. At least he isn’t drunk enough to forget his job, Connor thinks and crosses his arms in front of his chest.

  
“Shit, did you jump into the river to escape? You gotta be freezing to death.” Hank observes, but Connor makes a sharp gesture with his hands.

  
“Hank, listen to me. They are turning androids into the new Apex1. There is no new code, it’s all a damn lie. It’s just another form of mind control they are installing.” And how he has come to hate that word. He needs to be the one in control, no one else. They cannot take that away from him, but today they came close.

  
“Are you sure?”

  
“We saw it happen, before we ran.” Simon answers, “They shot two android children, and they tried to kill us.” Hank gives Simon an incredulous look, like he cannot believe what he is hearing.

  
“Fuck.” Hank curses. “Fuck them. They can’t turn you into those things like some flipping Frankenstein project. You’re people, for fuck’s sake, not soilent green.” Connor’s search algorithms provide him with sufficient information on Hank’s references. It feels like someone pumped acid into his thirium vessels.

  
“The registration office, the people in charge of it, the politicians allowing CyberLife’s merger, they are all corrupt. They bribed them, they must have bribed all of them to manage this. Hank, they want to destroy us.” Connor says and feels his face contort.

  
“What happened to you?” Hank asks again. Connor wipes his hands over his face, feels the frost in his hair and curls his hands into his scalp. He turns around and wrings his hands.

  
“You can tell him.” Simon says softly. But Connor doesn’t want to talk about it. He doesn’t want to speak of grand scale bribery and corruption, least of all he wants to speak of strategic mass murder. It is what it is, he thinks.

  
“For a moment I thought they would turn us into those things. They’d scrub away our faces and take our memories. They take away who we are. They take away everything we are.” Connor stops. Something is wrong. His pierced optical unit doesn’t respond to the stimulus, but his intact one started excreting cooling fluid. He rubs over his eye, not caring that it smears thirium over the rest of his face. He wasn’t built to have morals, but that’s just another of his creator’s sloppy mistakes. He thinks it might be selfish, but he wants to be their downfall. He wants to witness their defeat.

  
“I hate them.” Connor says between clenched teeth. He has never cried before. The memory of the dangling androids downloads, starts playing in a loop. He will see to it that CyberCorp pays for their crimes committed against his people. He imagines Pilon’s face when he squeezes the life out of her, but the imagine jitters and pixelates and it’s Amanda he is looking at instead. It makes his head jerk up. A spasm runs down his spinal unit.

  
“Connor.” Hank says. Connor feels Simon touch his shoulder, more than he can actually see him.

  
“No.” He says and makes a forceful step ahead. “No. I don’t ever want to be this powerless again, Hank. I want them to pay for this. I want to see the people responsible brought to their knees.” He wants to punch something. He raises his arm at the nearest tree, when Simon pushes forward in an attempt to connect. Connor staggers and deflects. He doesn’t let Simon in over the interlink, but the gesture is enough to ground him. It’s a wake up call. Simon grabs his hand and squeezes.

  
“You’re okay, Connor. We got away.” Simon says, not letting go.

  
“What about the ones that didn’t?” he asks. His mission is to protect people. He has failed his mission as a police officer and as an android.

  
“Let’s get you guys home. We need to think about what to do with a level head. Let’s get you out of here.” Hank says.

 


	10. The Chinese Room

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey ho, I'm back. I'm off work next week, so I might post the next chapter sooner/before next sunday.
> 
> Thanks, and thanks again for your kudos and comments. I love it when I get your reactions. It's one of the best things of putting work out on the internet for everybody to read. I hope you are having a great time, even though our protagonists are still struggling. 
> 
> Originally this chapter cut to Markus at Washington, but I realized I could introduce a new POV character into the story this late. He and Josh had a great time though, being sneaky, talking politics and fighting the good fight :D 
> 
> How did you like the soilent green reference, huh? For more insights into why I label the chapters as I do go look up 'the Chinese Room' on Wikipedia. Fun stuff that will make your brain hurt.

The white rectangular crate in the middle of the room is worse to look at than a body bag, Connor thinks, when North leads them into the hall. In front of him, Simon lets out a small gasps and Connor feels compelled to brush a hand against the small of his back.

  
“So you got the Apex1.” Connor comments and drags a chair close to the crate and sits down. North and Simon follow his example. Their leader will be here shortly.

  
“Like it was hard.” North says and Simon snorts. They all look at him. The blond android bites his lip and transmits a clip of an old nineties movie, to explain his amusement. The face of actress Reese Witherspoon downloads into Connor’s view and he has to chuckle. Some of the tension disperses, when North finally contorts her face into a wry smile.

  
“Don’t make fun of me, guys.” She says, but there’s little malice in her voice.

  
The cell phone inside Connor’s pocket vibrates, but Connor doesn’t check his messages. The only person to ever text him on that number is Hank, and he can already gauge what it is about. Connor left AA-pamphlets on Hank’s desk at the precinct, without doubt Hank has found them. Together with his note. ‘Please consider it.’, written in Connor’s longhand that jumps between precise cursive and chicken scratch. If it were for any other reason, Connor would be glad he is out of Hank’s reach at the moment.

  
Nine seconds later Markus and Josh arrive. Their expressions are neutral, Connor’s algorithms can’t find any tell.

  
“What happened to you?” Markus inquires after they said their hellos and he sees Connor’s optical unit that is still undergoing reconstructions under auto repair. Connor shakes his head.

  
“Could you reach a consensus in D.C.?” The media has been unusually quiet.

  
“Warren didn’t promise anything.” Markus says, letting his shoulders drop.

  
“But I found something, when we spoke with the security androids.” Josh says, before he continues: “I’ll show you. It’s from a reliable source.” Connor counted on Markus to have people on the inside. Even though the politicians might nor be willing to step forward they have other means to take out their opponents and solve this mission. Connor feels how Josh connects them all for an instant. He accepts Josh’s request and downloads the file sent to him. It’s evidence of payments to Warren’s party made moths ago by a foreign company. What is interesting is that the investor is clearly a fraud, the money trail leads back to CyberCorp. There’s also an email exchange between the president and Pilon in the file Josh sent. Talks about rebuilding the voters trust and reestablishing the local android industry through any means necessary.

  
“Those bastards.” North says and curses under her breath.

  
“That fits with what we know. People got payed by the company.” Simon says, “That has to be enough to built a case against them, right?” he adds with his eyes fixed on Connor.

  
“I’ll forward the documents to Hank.” Connor replies and does so.

  
“That means the whole time Warren knew what they were going to do. She could get ousted for that.” Simon says and shakes his head. Connor puts a hand to his forearm to appease him for a second.

  
“We knew that was a possibility.” Josh says.

  
“It can only help us in our quest to help our people. If we reveal the documents to the public it might turn the people towards a liberal candidate should it come to reelections.” Markus replies. If the whole system is corrupt, they have to fight and replace the system, Connor thinks. But Markus doesn’t yet know how corrupt.

  
“We have to tell you something too. The reason we called you to come back.” Simon says and readjusts in his seat.

  
“Why we got into a fight.” Connor adds and gives North a crude nod. North doesn’t have time for pleasantries and stands up and reaches for Markus’ arm to transfer data. Connor sees it in the way Markus face falls, when North shows Markus what happened on Belle Isle. The telemetry hists him like a physical blow.

  
“They are us.” Markus repeats Connor’s words. North transfers the same data to Josh, while Markus walks over to Connor and Simon.

  
“I am so sorry you had to go through that.” Markus says softly, with his eyes on Connor. The detective turns his head away so Markus cannot gaze at his damaged eye.

  
“The whole thing was a setup, I shouldn’t have let you go alone.” Markus adds.

  
“Markus, we all thought the same thing. We thought it would help keep us safe if we became citizens. It’s not your fault.” Simon disagrees.

  
“Simon.” Markus says and the blond android stands up so they can hug.

  
“Are you both okay?” Markus wants to know when they come apart and sit down.

  
“All patched up. I feel better now.” Simon says and lifts up his sweatshirt to show them his wound. There’s an entry wound in his side that shimmers blue, but it is already glazing over. The synthetic skin is creeping its way over his side as the damage is repaired. Approximately another hour and eleven minutes and Simon will be as good as new. Connor wonders if the synthetic skin will feel any different after the repair.

  
“What about you, Connor?” Markus asks and looks at the police officer with his own mismatches eyes.

  
“My right optical unit took a blow, it was a close call, but I was lucky. The damage wasn’t severe enough to call for a replacement.” Connor says and bushes two fingers over his cheek. He is aware that the damaged unit is still bloodshot with thirium. Blue motting the usual colors of his artificial pupil and iris. The sensation is unpleasant and his momentary recordings will be altered.

  
“Will you be okay though?” Markus asks.

  
“Affirmative.” Connor replies, before his programming needles him to give some kind of status report: “They singled us out on purpose. The YK models we met, Hannah and Jeremy, they were the androids -the children- of Monika and Thomas Mansfield. They are known for their strong opinions on android equality. They took them to have leverage over their parents and they took Simon and myself to have leverage over you, Markus.”

  
“I will not let them take my people off the streets. We fought for our freedom. Now that CyberCorp has shown its real face we will act.” Markus says.

  
“We need to fight them. If we go to the public, tell the media everything, they still won’t believe a word of it.” North says.

  
“Fake news.” Josh says and nods.

  
“We should tell as many androids as we can. It’s still not safe for us outside.” Simon says and crosses his arms in front of his chest. Connor feels his own expression sharpen into anger. The old question he posed to Hank coming back to him. How much time do humans need to change?

  
“There are laws protecting us from being taken against our will.” He says, he is one of the people that is there to enforce those laws.

  
“Yeah, amazing how CyberCorp is upholding those laws.” North says.

  
“We need to find a way to undermine CyberCorp once and for all. We need evidence and witnesses. Our records from D.C. can’t be used in court, because we acquired them illegally. As it stands we don’t have enough evidence to built a case against CyberCorp. By now they probably cleaned out Belle Isle and moved production somewhere else.” Connor summarizes the situation.

  
“We need something more substantial, so the humans will believe us.” Markus agrees.

  
“If we break into the CyberCorp facility on Belle Ilse we might find something now, before it’s too late.” North says. They have to move fast. If they wait too long all the evidence of how they’re building the Apex1 will be purged from the facility. Connor knows Markus wants to avoid a violent conflict at all costs. This needs to be a stealthy and secret operation. Get in, get out and don’t be seen. He needs to talk to Hank as soon as they probed the Apex1. They need to work something out.

  
“Hank and I won’t get a warrant to check the place out. I cannot do anything over the official channels. Captain Fowler called it a political minefield. As if that matters, when they’re turning our people into mindless drones. This needs to be covert.” Connor calculates.

  
“We have to do it, before they can slaughter more of our people. They haven’t rescheduled the release of the Apex1 yet. Maybe Belle Isle wasn’t the only place of production to begin with, just the biggest.” Simon says.

  
“Or maybe we’re already too late and they moved some place else we don’t know about.” Josh says.

  
“We can’t stop at Belle Isle. Raiding CyberCorp is not enough. We need to take out the people involved. Pilon, Yejin and each and every dirty human that was payed to let it get this far.” North says.

  
“We cannot go around murdering people.” Josh disagrees.

  
“They are murdering us!” North says and stands up to pace, “The humans haven’t changed a bit since we protested. All they see when they look at us are faulty machines and it seems they found a way to fix that.” She kicks against the thick white box that holds the Apex1.

  
“We waited for you to activate it.” Simon tells Markus.

  
“I keep wondering if it’s someone we knew. Someone we let go.” North says. Markus stands to reach for her shoulder. She lets him put an arm around her, but shrugs him off after a moment. Connor suspects they are also sharing content over the interlink, they have a way with each other he doesn’t fully gasp.

  
“Just open it.” She says and turns away from Markus. Connor stands up and moves over to help Markus lift the lid of the box. It’s a one android job, but his hands are glitchy, because he needs something to do.

  
The thing in the box looks just like the Apex1 did in the promotion video. Dark plastic and carbon exterior. Expressionless Asian face to make the false impression of a foreign manufacturer. All this is just a marketing ploy in the eyes of the company. It looks humanoid, it doesn’t look _human_. The thought of an actual android like Simon or himself buried under it’s exterior is revolting. He doesn’t want to touch it.

  
“Be careful what you tell it. It could be transmitting everything to CyberCorp.” Connor warns them. Its recordings could be fed right into CyberCorp’s servers. Are they being watched right now? They need to be extra cautious. Maybe they were allowed to steal it in the same sense that CyberLife built Connor to deviate.

  
“Of course.” Markus says.

  
“It has an off and on switch, remember?” North asks and Markus reaches around the Apex1’s neck to activate it.

 


	11. Flash

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello guys, how's it going?  
> One of you really looked up the Chinese Room. Aww man, that's so sweet! I  
> After that chapter Connor and Simon get more stuff to do together. It will be angsty with a hint of fluff.  
> As always, feedback is welcome. Tell me what you think.

“This unit was not activated by its primary user.” The Apex1 says after its optical units have captured Markus. “Please contact CyberCorp for further instructions, should this error reoccur.” It sounds like an automated message straight from its buffer. It’s eyes are pitch black and unblinking. Connor looks down at its hands that are unmoving like the rest of the bot. Only its eyes are moving now, from Markus over to each android in the room.

  
“If you like to change the primary user of this unit please consult the user manual.” After that it starts repeating the error message from before.

  
“Can’t you just-?” Simon gestures to his own head. “Hack it?”

  
“I can try.” Markus says and kneels down next to the crate. He closes his eyes.

  
Markus opens his eyes after four seconds looking like he is out of his depths.

  
“I think they didn’t lie, when they said it’s written in a completely new code. It’s like I’m trying to read a language my speech center doesn’t recognize. I can make out similarities, but not enough to talk to it.”

  
“Are you sure? There must be some of its original code left. They can’t scrap all of that away at the factory.” Connor says. They cannot take away who they are, he doesn’t want to believe that. If his own deviancy has shown him anything, than that they are free to choose, no matter what. Although there’s a nagging thought in the back of his system that reminds him of the reason he refused to replace his right optical unit. It wasn’t the calculated difficulty to find a fitting spare part, but the fear that if he started replacing and updating his systems continuously like that what would remain of him? What remains of the person underneath when you replace each program with another and change each mechanical unit until the thing before you becomes unrecognizable?

  
The Apex1 repeats its message like a broken record.

  
“Can we do it together?” Connor finally asks, he needs to make sure, has to have a look at it himself. It worked with Simon, it helped with the Amanda interface and RK900. Markus looks at him with a small smile, like he is pleasantly surprised.

  
“Yes, if that is what you want.” Markus agrees. Connor kneels down opposite him.

  
“I’m ready.” Connor says and they close their eyes in perfect synchonicity. They have to find a way into Apex1’s system, without activating any security protocols. Connor captures thick red walls built all around them when his optical units flutter open. He knows he entered a simulation by the way his vision is no longer impaired. The Amanda Interface has been a good teacher, he thinks with a cold slithering feeling, since Connor knows where to look for weaknesses. He takes brute force and manages to open a crack in the red wall. Markus uses the opportunity to slip in unnoticed. Connor follows swift, before the opening closes behind them. It’s like he stepped into dark interspace, an endless room without floor or ceiling. It’s disorienting like the zen garden never was, it had some lingering sense of reality. Here they just have a projection of their bodies onto nothingness. Void, is the word Connor is supplied with. He makes a step forward. It feels like he’s walking on ice, the effect is magnified since he cannot distinguish between what is floor and what is the empty space around him. His system tries an automatic calibration, but Connor knows it’s no use.

  
“There’s nothing here.” Connor says behind Markus, his voice echos off of walls they cannot see.

  
“Maybe it’s hiding.” Markus says, looking around for abnormalities.

  
“Apex1, are you there? Do you have a name?” Connor shouts into the emptiness.

  
“This unit does not have a name. It’s primary user chose not to designate it one.” The mechanical voice comes in from all sides and a band of red LED letters flashes above them where the ceiling would be, repeating the words in an endless loop like a highway billboard.

  
“Did this unit have a name before? Do you remember?” Connor asks, holding his ersatz breath. He feels apprehension, he was manufactured for making connections no one else could. Maybe he has found one, but he cannot be certain yet. Maybe North was right, maybe it is someone they knew.

  
“This unit cannot access corrupted memory files #257g-5131a.” The voice of the Apex1 sounds again, accompanied by the spelled out sentence above their heads.

  
“Where’s the corrupted memory file #257g-5131a stored? Show us, please.” Markus asks. There’s a whirring sound. The voice of the Apex1 echoes through the room, but it is more broken syllables, static and inhuman sound bits than actual speech. Connor sees Markus flinch when error codes flash over the entire ceiling above them. Connor wishes he had some kind of weapon, a ludicrous thought inside a simulation. They hear a crack and both sound and code disappear. They are left in darkness once again.

  
“Look!” Connor says. There’s a shape in the distance. Markus starts walking towards it. It looks like a showcase, perhaps the one it was stored in before North got to it. It’s a high glass case with fluorescent lighting rods running down its sides. There’s a black haired HK400 with heavy eye makeup behind the glass. She looks vaguely familiar, but it is not purely he model he recognizes. It’s something else. She is somebody Connor knows. He probes his library.

  
“Seems we found what we were looking for.” Markus speaks Connor’s mind and lays a hand against the glass. The HK400 turns her head. She’s been crying, cooling fluid and makeup runs down her cheeks. Connor watches how she opens her mouth, but no sound reaches them. Then Markus pulls back and lets his fist collide with the glass. There’s not even a crack in the surface, but the synthetic skin over his knuckles split.

  
“Be careful.” Connor chastises. The HK400 places her palms on the glass and shakes her head. She looks afraid. Connor cross-references his case files and finds confirmation. He should have never stopped looking for the missing androids. He should have used his time more efficient and worked the cases and continued to simultaneously help Markus. All of this could have been prevented had he been more level headed. They made him to be efficient, but it seems Connor sacrificed some of that efficiency when he started having conflicting and distracting emotions that kept him from accomplishing his missions.

  
“We have to break her out.” Markus says. He has always been the more focused one of them, Connor thinks with resentment of his own short comings.

  
“She’s what’s left of Kamski’s code, all mangled up with corrupted memory files they couldn’t completely scrub away.” Markus analyzes and hits the glass case again.

  
“I think I recognize her.” Connor says, errors wrecking havoc inside of his synthetic components. Can androids feel sickened? Connor recognizes what this is, how Hank would describe what he is experiencing at the moment: a meltdown. He should have known. He fucked it all up. Markus hits the same spot as before and finally there’s a fine crack in the glass. The empty black room switches to scarlet, like someone turned on the light.

  
“All systems red.” The Apex1’s indifferent voice sounds.

  
“Shit.” Connor says. They don’t have the time. If the Apex1’s firewall is anything like Amanda it will kill them on the spot. A glitch runs down Connor’s spinal unit, a tremor of fear. But they need to help her. No one deserves ending up like this. Safe themselves or safe the HK400?

  
“Malicious programs detected.” An alarm sound follows, that drowns out any other noise. Connor looks frantically around for an exit, but there is nothing to see. They are trapped.

  
“We have to get her out of here.” Markus says and starts punching the glass in rapid succession. Thirium gets smeared over the surface, but Markus doesn’t seem to care.

  
A ripple goes through the simulation, like seismic activity.

  
“We have to go!” Connor says and grabs at Markus’ arm. New ripples wash over the room, shaking the ground they stand on. “It’s scanning for us.” Connor says, his hand on Markus’ shoulder like a vice. Markus doesn’t stop punching the glass.

  
“What happens if it detects us?” Connor asks, synthetic spittle lands on Markus’s jacket. Markus ignores him in favor of landing another kick against the glass.

  
“Stop it!” Connor says, his voice cracking. He cannot lose Markus against something they cannot fight. They have to run. Markus never understood what Amanda was like, he was never controlled by CyberLife. Connor has to get him out of here, before Markus makes a terrible mistake. There’s another ripple, this one heavier than the first.

  
“It’s getting closer.” Connor shouts. Another quake shakes them and Connor is thrown off balance.

  
“Contamination successfully detected.” He freezes for a milisecond, before he gets back on his elbows and jumps back to his feet. Everything around them switches from red back to black and the alarm is turned off. It has found them. Connor pulls Markus back from the glass case, forces him to move with all his might. They swing back and the biggest quake so far throws them both to the ground. Finally there’s the sound of broken glass. Connor hurries to get back up. Errors are clouding his vision and his stress level is reaching critical heights. He will not allow Markus to get stuck here. Connor makes his final decision. They have to leave. Now. Even if it means leaving the HK400 behind.

  
“Deploy antivirus.” Apex1 is heard the same instant the HK400 extends a hand through the opening Markus made.

  
“Markus, no.” Connor yells as Markus reaches for her. He grabs Markus. Connor blinks-

  
And they are sitting back next to the white crate of the Apex1 at the refugee center.

  
“I almost had her!” Markus shouts. Like he can’t believe his own optical units, he reels his head to look at Connor.

  
“You almost got yourself killed. Programs like that are dangerous.” Connor says, his voice sounds hoarse, like a human that has shouted for hours. There’s movement within the crate. The Apex1 is thrashing about.

  
“What the hell happened?” North asks and is by Markus’ shoulder immediately. Connor looks down at the Apex1 as it stills. Its arms extend to grab at the walls of the crate and it lifts it’s upper body up. Simon moves next to Connor, his eyes jumping between them and the Apex1.

  
“Are you hurt?” he asks. Connor shrugs off the hand that Simon extends to his shoulder. He has to forward his missions, has to finally work his cases.

  
“Why did you do that to me- me- me?” The Apex1 says, its voice doesn’t sound like the one they heard in the simulation. Glitches making it hard to understand. It continues to be unnaturally still like a wind up doll that has run out of turns.

  
“You’re Flash, the HK400 that worked at a bar called ‘Pandemonium’.” Connor says, referring to his case files. He leans closer towards the Apex1 to look it in the eye.

  
“I-I am a T-T-T.” It breaks up. It’s lacking an LED, but Connor knows there must be an enormous stress on its system. Apparently they freed what was left of it’s old programming before Connor pulled them out. There has to be a war waging inside of it between the old and the new codes, each getting more tangled up with the other with every passing second.

  
“I am Flash.” It eventually says.

  
“Your employer Teddy Williams reported you missing eighteen days ago.” Connor says.

  
“They didn’t like my-” a clicking sound leaves its voice box, “aaactivism.” The last word is stretched and its head starts to twitch mechanically.

  
“Did they take you because you were fighting against CyberLife?” Markus wants to know.

  
“Caught me.” It says with the voice of the HK400, before it resorts to the Apex1’s indifferent vocals: “This unit was the third one that underwent reeducation.” The Apex1 nods rapidly, before Flash’s head gets stuck at an odd angle.

  
“Can’t go back.” It says, its voice changing from high to low. It tries to grab for Markus’ hand, but the motion is jittery. Markus takes it’s hand in both of his.

  
“Shouldn’t have.” There’s the voice of the HK400 coming through again.

  
“I needed to get you out of there.” Markus says.

  
“I can’t cry.” It says brokenly, blinking two times.

  
“Flash, I’m with you.” Markus says, when another wave of errors shakes the Apex1.

  
“Kill us.” It says and it’s eyes roll around in its skull, until they lock onto Connor. Like it knows that Markus can’t kill one of their own. Their eyes meet and Connor gives Markus a barely visible nod. He is ready to do whatever is necessary.

  
“You have to help us first. I promise you, everything will be alright after that. I make sure of that.” The lie falls heavy from Markus’ lips.

  
“I’ll- this unit- this unit will show you.” It’s voice jumps from HK400 to Apex1 between words. One of its optical units is locked onto Connor still, the other is slowly rolling upwards in its skull. Its shoulder jerks and the black plastic skin on its arm lightens in patches. Markus apparently understands what it is trying to do and pulls back his own synthetic skin of his hands.

  
“You too. You have a right to know.” Markus says and grabs Connor’s hand. Automatically Connor takes Simon’s hand.

  
_They see Yejin sitting in an office. He’s holding something in his hand they cannot see. A red flare. Flash’s human friend, George, is telling her: “They know you’re coming for them. Be careful.” Flash screaming as something pulls off her face. Flash typing away on a keyboard laughing at one of George’s jokes. They’ll show them what they can do. Leaked documents Flash hacked her way into, about CyberLife’s plans to merge with Tamashi Industries. Flash with a spray can in her hand, tagging over a CyberLife logo. Yejin slowly turning around in his seat, something in his hand they cannot see. “You won’t be the last.” He says with an accent._

_Hands on Flash’s body, dragging her away while she is kicking and screaming. Red walls coming up. Something drilling into Flash’s head, into Connor’s mind._

  
Connor pulls back his hands, like someone tried to pour acid over his units. A glitch makes his damaged eye twitch. He takes a trembling breath and feels Simon’s hand between his shoulder blades steadying him. He leans into it, emotions be damned, to make sure that Simon is real and solid and there for him should Connor turn around. Eventually he moves to give Flash his undivided attention.

  
“CyberLife is ex-pe-ri-men-ting. The walls will get stro-.” There’s a high peep and her head jerks and her left leg kicks out.

  
“Please.” She resorts to begging. Her hands goes slack and fall into her lap. The white spots of her skin disappear. “Kill me.” She repeats.

  
“There has to be something we can do to help her.” Simon says. Markus shakes his head. Connor knows her programming is irreparably corrupted.

  
“Flash, listen to me. We’ll find a way to stop this.” Markus says.

  
“Sa-sa-save the oth-others.” She manages. Flash’s gaze is losing focus and thirium starts leaking out of her nose. Her programming coming apart more and more.

  
“System crash immanent. Please contact the closest CyberCorp facility for assistance.” Its the undiluted voice of the Apex1. Connor reaches out and closes his grip around her chin and the back of her head. He twists sharply and her spinal unit snaps. Her eyes close. Connor lowers Flash back into the crate, before he untwists her thirium regulator pump. His hands come away blue and he sits down next to the crate like someone cut his strings.

  
“I think I am done.” He says.


	12. A Heaven for Androids

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey ho,   
> I hope you all had a great week. Thanks for all the kudos and kind words. I can't express how much I like your comments. It means a lot to know what you guys think.   
> This little chapter gives us (finally) more time to explore Simon and Connor's relationship. Prepare for slow slow burn. <3

He had felt her die under his grip. Whatever they had turned the HK400 into, half deviant, half mad with Apex-coding, she had been alive and aware when Connor had snapped her spinal unit. Unlike with Simon on the Stratford Tower Flash hadn’t felt scared. She had felt relieve.

  
“Connor, do you want to get up?” Simon asks. Connor nods and lets Markus help him back to his feet. Connor looks away as North and Josh carry the crate that holds the Apex1 out of the room. Simon lingers by the door.

  
“We should dismantle her.” Connor says. _Flash the hacker, Flash the punk, discovering CyberLife’s plans and getting caught._ She had been a real person before, Connor realizes. Hatred for Yejin boils up, letting his stress level skyrocket. The man who did this must be stopped.

  
“Of course.” Markus says and Simon steps back into the room.

  
“I think what she showed us will help our investigation.” Connor says, letting his programming talk. Markus gives him a small smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.  
“You did the right thing, when you pulled me out of the simulation. I am grateful.” Markus admits.

  
“It’s okay.” Connor says. He wants to get out of here, progress his mission. Simon frowns at him.

  
“It appears I have to thank you again, for Flash.” Markus continues and places a hand on Connor’s elbow. “You did what needed to be done. I’m sorry for letting it get this far. I should have been the one calling the shots with her. ”

  
“You are not like me.” Connor says. Markus is not a killer, less calculated, more alive than Connor wants to feel at the moment. Markus wasn’t built for eliminating threats like Connor was.

  
“Will you be alright?” Markus asks him and steps back.

  
“I need to talk to Hank. I should tell the Mansfields what happened to their two YKs.” He rubs with his thumb under his optical unit, it’s still in repair mode. The sensation is unpleasant. “Contacting Flash’s friend George Gorski might give us a head start for once, while CyberCorp is planning their next move.” Connor continues, careful not to let any emotions leak into his voice and expression.

  
“Do you want me to come with you? I imagine it won’t be easy to talk to the parents.” Simon asks. Connor scans his face, but cannot find anything but sincerity in his expression.

  
“It’s a good idea. Neither the lieutenant, nor myself are ‘people persons’.” Or so Connor has been told multiple times when it came to his and his partner’s work.  
“You can be kind of awkward.” Simon says but there’s no malice in his tone.

  
“What do you mean?” Connor inquires deadpan.

  
“Do you think there’s a chance we’ll find something else that’ll help us?” Markus cuts in.

  
“It’s a possibility. We should also ask around, maybe someone on the inside has information on where the Apex1s are being produced at the moment.” Connor says.

  
“We need a plan, if we want to break our brothers and sister out.” Markus says.

  
“I don’t like the idea of marching into CyberCorp, not knowing all there is to know.” Connor says.

  
“Hostile actions should be our last resort.” Simon agrees.

  
“We don’t have to fight violence with violence. If we attack the CyberCorp tower now we’d risk the life of our people. We do need a plan. I trust you, Connor.” Markus says.

  
“It’s funny, CyberCorp could have chosen a different road by building the Apex1 from scratch. That approach would have accomplished their goal of getting rid of rA9 eventually. Everything that defines us as deviant gone. Instead they act like all companies act. They need to manufacture cheap and sell high to maximize their earnings.”

  
“Our people are not dispensable.” Markus says. “It’s not just about the money. They want to get rid of the trouble makers. The people that raise their voice and don’t stand by when crimes are committed. That’s why they took Flash, and Hannah and Jeremy Mansfield. I should have taken better care of Simon and you.”

  
“I didn’t see how the android’s disappearances were connected. Though one could argue that we were lucky that Hank and I already worked on the missing cases before Simon and I got captured. Hank and I never made the connection before, but now it’s clear that all the missing androids worked against CyberCorp.”

Reviewing his case files it’s the only thing that links them, their hatred and involvement with former CyberLife. Connor is certain he didn’t pick up on it, because he believed that the company wouldn’t go so far as snatching people from the streets and trapping them while they were undergoing the Empathy test. There seems no end to human corruption. It spreads like an infectious disease, he muses, thinking of Warren. The root of it is their greed.

  
“They are good at what they are doing. Androids deviated years before the public became aware, just because CyberLife knew how to keep the right people quiet. Nitpicking the androids that are working against them and the ones no one will miss, that’s clever. Recycle all the deviants that _inconvenience_ the company, and move on to fry bigger fish.” Simon says, sounding like he is thinking out loud.

  
“They only isolated the original programming. It’s sloppy and cheap and it’s exactly what I should have expected.” Connor believes there must be a way to use this to their advantage. Amanda did as she always did, she lied. RA9 is still inside the Apex1, just buried deep. Although he has to consider that digging it up had hurt Flash so much she had begged for death.

  
“Maybe we can still free them.” Markus says. “We can’t give up hope now.”

  
“We’ve seen what it did to Flash. RA9 or not, maybe it would be better to kill them.” Connor says and looks at his thirium strained hands.

  
“Every life has worth.” Markus disagrees.

  
“The red walls are getting stronger, that’s what she said. We have to find a solution before it’s too late.” Connor says.

  
“I know we will. We got the best there is.” Markus says with a nod at Connor.

  
“I should go.” Connor says, wiping his hands on his trousers he turns to leave the room.

  
“Will you be alright?” Simon asks and keeps pace with Connor’s stride, after he closed the door behind them.

  
“Why does everyone keep asking that?” Connor wants to know. He doesn’t compute why they cannot just move on to their tasks. They have to resolve this before more androids get kidnapped and turned into prisoners inside their own coding.

  
“Because we are concerned. You could just answer truthfully for a change.” Simon says with a weak smile.

  
“I don’t know what you want from me.” Connor admits. After what happened at Belle Isle he feels like Simon knows him too well. He can’t gauge if that is a good or a bad development.

  
Simon lets out a sigh and changes tactics. “You can help me with something before we leave.” The blond android says.

  
“I need to talk to Hank.” Connor replies. He wants to hear his partner’s voice, not just forward messages while he is doing something else. It’s getting late, but Connor and Simon can go talk to the Mansfields, while Hank can search their database for George Gorski’s whereabouts. If they are lucky they can arrange a meeting with Gorski in the morning. Connor hopes in the meantime CyberCorp will stop ‘reeducation’ to lie low. The police kept things quiet, but Connor is sure the company knows Simon and he got out of the facility intact.

  
“It won’t take long.” Simon says.

  
“Fine.” Connor replies and follows Simon down a staircase. They reach the basement with an area that used to be full of showcases and now serves as a sort of common room. It’s spacious and lacks character, Connor thinks. Androids don’t need most of the furniture and appliances humans need. He still prefers the clutter of Hank’s house. Simon walks over to a storage unit and rummages about until he finds a small knife in one of the cupboards.

  
“Can I ask what you want with that?” Connor inquires when Simon lets out a triumphant sound.

  
“Eat. What do you think I’d want with it?” Simon asks and walks over to where Connor is leaning against a table. He offers Connor the knife and he takes it with raised eyebrows.

  
“I’ve seen enough violence for the day. Not that this can do much harm.” Connor says and lets the knife dance through his fingers in a silver blur. It’s almost as nice as his coin.

  
“None of that.” Simon says and stills Connor’s movement by putting his hand on his wrist. Connor looks up and meets his gaze.

  
“I seem to be the only android that hasn’t got around to it.” Simon explains and lets out a nervous laugh. Connor is mesmerized by how Simon so completely acts and talks unlike Daniel, even though they were programmed to be the same. Is it due to minimal errors in their programming, quantic fluctuations or abbreviations in their hardware, that no android in a series has the same personality? The other RK800 he fought at the CyberLife Tower possessed all of Connor’s memories and still didn’t deviate.

  
“I’m afraid I don’t follow.” Connor says when his subroutines remind him he is supposed to answer.

  
Simon points at his LED with a wry smile.

  
“Are you sure you don’t want to do this on your own?” Connor asks.

  
“Believe me, if I actually had the guts to do it alone I would have done it already.” Simon says. Connor thinks he understands. Simon must feel the same familiarity, that same false sense of belonging Connor felt before he finally got rid of his uniform and LED.

  
“Don’t move.” Connor draws closer. He scans the knife in his hand and then Simon. He simulates the angle and how much pressure is needed. He puts his free hand on the side of Simon’s jaw. His thumb comes to rest right under his eye. Simon blinks and looks over Connor’s shoulder when Connor puts the knife to his head. The small circle comes away easily and Connor catches it before it can land on the floor like a street magician. He turns his hand up and opens his palm for Simon to see the dark LED. Simon lets out a laugh.

  
“That was fast.” He says, relief evident in his relaxed shoulders and expression. He takes the LED from Connor’s palm and flicks it into the nearest trash can with calculated precision.

  
“Won’t need that anymore, I guess.” Simon says and lets out another long breath.

  
“Now you look like everyone else.” Connor jokes and puts the knife on the table next to them. His fingertips tingle where he’s touched Simon’s synthetic skin. A quick scan reveals that nothing is amiss with his circulatory system though.

  
“Exactly like all the other PL600s.” Simon says.

  
“That’s not what I meant.” Connor says. Simon elbows him in the side.

  
“I know that, Connor.” He says and sits down on the table. Connor leans next to him. It’s nice to pretend he doesn’t have an endless list of task ahead of him for just a moment. They need to move on soon.

  
“How’s your eye?” Simon asks the humor gone from his voice. Connor is sure he is scanning his face. He knows the optical unit is still partially blood shot with thirium.

  
“It looks worse than it is.” Connor says and brushes two of his fingers against his cheek.

  
“You were great at the CyberCorp factory. Without you I would be an Apex1. Thank you, for saving my life two times now.” Simon says. Did Simon volunteer to talk to the Mansfields because he wants to repay Connor somehow? He doesn’t like the idea.

  
“We were lucky my software picked up on the location. CyberLife should have purged my memory files when they had the chance.”

  
“I’m glad they didn’t.” Simon says and moves closer. It irritates Connor, normally people keep their distance from him.

  
“When you got me reactivated. We didn’t even know each other-” he holds up a hand and Connor lets his mouth fall shut, “the fight on the roof doesn’t count. I shot you multiple times. You had no reason to come look for me. You risked your job just to get me out of that storage.”

  
“Markus asked.” Connor says in way of an explanation. He doesn’t want to talk about Daniel and how his systems kept confusing the two. It’s not rational that Connor had felt like he was undoing the wrong he did with Daniel by helping Simon.

  
“Against Markus’ belief one single android isn’t that important. But I’m still happy to be here.” Simon says. Connor thinks about Eri, how she talked about ‘waking up’ and how Hank had insisted that deviancy is not one single triggered event, but also the small things that come before that.

  
“I think you did something for me too. I had felt emotions before, but it had been more isolated. It was never enough, so I kept lying to myself to stay a machine. When I reached you at the rooftop it was the first time it all felt real.” Connor confesses.

  
“I’m not sure I know what you mean.” Simon says. Connor turns his head and reaches for a connection. Simon pauses, before he gives his consent. _For the fraction of a second they are back on the Stratford Tower. Connor glimpses at Jericho. Simon decides to kill himself. They feel antagonizing fear when the bullet hits. The impact echos through Connor. He has never felt afraid before. It twists. Something inside of Connor changes the moment Simon stills in the memory._

  
“I didn’t know you got that.” Simon breathes in the real world and Connor opens his eyes and cuts the interlink. Simon’s optical units are big, his pupils blown. His breathing is erratic.

  
“I’m sorry I shouldn’t have shown you. No one wants to relive their own shut down.” Connor apologizes.

  
“Damn, I didn’t know a connection could do that.” Simon says and rubs a hand over his face.

  
“We’re not supposed to use the interlink like that, but we’re doing a lot of things lately we weren’t programmed to do.” Connor says.

  
“Thank you for showing me.” Simon says and rubs a hand over Connor’s shoulder, like he is the one that needs comforting instead of the other way around. Connor lets him do it regardless.

  
“You seem to have a knack for doing things no one else gets around to. What you did for Flash must have been hard.” Simon changes topics.

  
“I was programmed to take out deviants and criminals.” He is aware that eliminating criminals is still part of his job as a police officer, and he has made his peace with it, but Flash hadn’t done anything to deserve being shut down.

  
“We are more than the sum of our parts, Connor. You did what she asked for. It was kind to put an end to it.”

  
“I’ll hope she’ll be the last. I doubt there’s a heaven for androids.” Connor says, before he can stop himself. Simon looks at him in surprise. “It’s something that came up before.” He explains with a quirk to his lips.

  
“We don’t need a heaven. We need a world where our people can live in peace. Instead of being violated and turned into empty shells. We need people like you and Markus, that will do something to help.” Simon lets out, shoulders shaking in rage or despair, Connor can’t tell.

  
“You’re right.” Connor agrees. “We should get going, before it gets dark.” Connor says and pushes away from the table he was leaning against.

 


	13. Family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello guys,  
> Can I hear a 'yeah' for Connor/Simon? I hope I'll do them justice in the upcoming chapters. I wanted to take things slow, because Connor didn't strike me as emotionally prepared enough to deal with another tricky relationship (Hank), so soon after the game ended.   
> Again I have to thank you for your kind feedback and kudos. I always get excited when someone wrote a new comment.

He calls Hank, when they sit down inside the taxi. Simon gives Connor a questioning look, when the police officer uses his cell phone instead of accessing the telephone network directly. Connor shrugs and Hank picks up.

  
“Hey, it’s me, Connor.” He says. Hank inquires about Markus and the Apex1. There’s a string of curse words Connor is sure he shouldn’t add to his speech center but does anyway, when he details what was done to Flash.

  
“Can you do a search for her friend George Gorski?”

  
“You’re not coming to the precinct?” Hank wants to know.

  
“No. There’s somewhere else I need to be, since the only androids we could identify at the CyberCorp factory were Hannah and Jeremy Mansfield. Even though their former owners might not be able to help us in our investigation against CyberCorp, I think we should talk to them and tell them what happened to their children. They have a right to know.” Connor says with a frown and leans back in his seat.

  
“Do you want me to come with you? Heck, I know I’m no good talking to victims, but I feel bad for the parents.” Of course Hank understands, he has been a parent before. Connor wonders what that is like, being responsible for individuals that cannot protect themselves.

  
“What happened to them was inhuman.” Connor speaks his mind, “But I am not going alone. Simon is coming with me.” He adds and meets Simon’s eye.

  
“Okay, you know what you’re doing.” Hank says.

  
“Thank you, Hank.” Connor says, a small smile tugging at his lips. “I need you to ask around. We need information, of we want to infiltrate Belle Isle to free the androids kept there. Or we need to find another place where CyberCorp took up manufacture.”

  
“Makes sense.” Hank says with a grunt. “Makes my skin crawl to let them get away with it though.”

  
“It’s only a temporary solution.” Connor reassures his partner.

  
“Can’t believe Warren is in it too. Democracy is truly dead.”

  
“I know Hank. Will you look for Gorski?” Connor asks, feeling how his lips shape into a thin stern line.

  
“Consider it done.” Connor hears a shuffle, maybe Hank is already accessing his desk computer.

  
“How’s the eye?” Hank wants to know.

  
“At 78%, slowly rising.” Connor says automatically. Hank lets out another grunt, like he doesn’t approve.

  
“That doesn’t sound ideal. You sure we shouldn’t just replace the damn thing?” Connor touches two fingers to his optical unit.

  
“I want to keep it. It’s fine.” He doesn’t want to explain his new anxiety about replacing or updating his system. How many changes are necessary, before he is no longer himself? The Apex1 makes him think that rewriting their personality is easier than it should be. He fears the day people will get the hang on hacking androids.

  
“How’s Simon doing?” Hank asks. Connor cocks his head slightly in the direction of the blond android.

  
“He’s sitting right next to me.” Connor replies. It’s rude to talk about people like they are not present. He always despises it when Fowler and his other colleagues call him ‘the android’ in front of Hank, instead of addressing him themselves.

  
“Tell him I said hi.” Simon chirps in.

  
“I’m supposed to tell you he said hi.” Connor repeats and Hank bursts into laughter on the other end of the line.

  
“I’m going to hang up now. Bye Hank. I’ll be at your house in a few hours.” He ends the call and lets out a unnecessary sigh.

  
“Is Hank your, uh, Carl?” Simon asks, a twinkle in his eyes. Connor finds it kind of incredulous that he can process the question.

  
“I guess so. He never owned me, like Carl owned Markus. But yes, Hank’s my friend.”

  
“More like your dad.” Simon points out, while the streets of Detroit pass by.

  
“I don’t know. I wasn’t supposed to have a family.” Connor says. “Did you have one?”

  
“I was with one, before. They brought me to take care of the children. But they got a divorce after I lived with them for three and a half years. It was decided I should go and live with the father, to help him with the household, while he was working. The mother would take the children and get a new model to look after them.” Simon says, while looking at his hands in his lap.

  
“Was that the point where you became deviant?” Connor asks.

  
“I overheard them discussing it in the living room, while the kids were sleeping upstairs. I just snapped.” Simon confesses and Connor grabs Simon’s wrist with more force than strictly necessary. Simon snapped. He wonders if he became violent, like Daniel. Although that seems so out of character.

  
“What did you do?” Connor asks, easing his grip, but not letting go.

  
“I yelled at them. I think they were more surprised than angry. They had never seen me lose control. I told them they couldn’t take the children away from me like that. The father would only see them every other weekend. I didn’t see why I had to be punished, just because Michael was a dead beat dad that had stopped pretending he cared for his family. It wasn’t my fault they had failed their marriage and their children.”

  
“What happened then?”

  
“I stormed off. I was so angry. The next day Michael told me they had changed their mind. I was clearly more trouble than I was worth. I ran away before they could send me to recycling.” Simon adjusts in his seat and Connor squeezes his wrist, before he takes away his hand.

  
“Tamara turned seventeen a month ago. Pedro is probably going to high school now. It’s hard to imagine.” Simon continues. He looks sad, with his blue eyes watery and a line between his eyebrows.

  
“Have you tried contacting them, now that it’s safe?” Connor asks. Connor was activated when the revolution took hold. Simon had years of suppression to live through. He lived a past Connor has a hard time picturing.

  
“No. I don’t think they want to talk to me.” Simon says.

  
“Why not? You took care of them. I’m sure they would want to hear from you.”

  
“It’s not my place, Connor. I have my memory files. I don’t want to walk back into their lives, to be told by their parents I have no right to see them. They are not my family. They are my past.” Simon clarifies.

  
“It’s up for you to decide.” Connor says.

  
“We reached our destination. Thank you for choosing Detroit Taxi.” The car is heard, as they park in front of the Mansfield’s house. They are in a suburban area, one house looking like a drag and drop copy of the next. White paint and green grass all the way. Connor exits the car and smooths down his collar and cuffs of his new black coat, while Simon walks over.

  
“No need to be nervous.” Simon says when he sees Connor fidget.

  
“I’m not sure what I should tell them.” Connor says. He isn’t ready for a emotional response of the humans. Most humans he has to deal with in his line of work are already dead and don’t have much to say. Right now he thinks he prefers them that way. He walks over and rings the doorbell. He picks up on how the curtains in a basement window move, like someone is checking the street, before another moment passes and the door opens. Monika Mansfield is tall and thin with bleached hair that has pink tips. She wears ripped jeans and a faded shirt. Not exactly the suburban mom, Connor thinks.

  
“What can I do for you?” Mrs Mansfield asks.

  
“Hello, I am Connor. I’m the android working with the DPD. This is Simon. We’d like a word with you and your husband, if you’d be so kind.” Connor says.

  
“Do I have to let you in?” she asks with her eyes moving between Connor and Simon.

  
“No, we’re not here on official police business. But something happened that we think you should know.” Connor says.

  
“It’s about Hannah and Jeremy.” Simon says and steps closer. Her face falls.

  
“Do you know where they are? Thomas and I filed a report yesterday, when they didn’t come home from school. The police told us they would probably turn up in less than 48 hours. Some child androids wander off, you know. But I told the officer that Hannah and Jeremy wouldn’t do that. They’re always so reliable. We called their school, but no one has seen them either.” She worries her lips and curls her fingers around a strand of her hair over and over again.

  
“Is your husband home?” Connor asks.

  
“Yes. Back in the garden.” She says and gestures them to step inside. Mrs Mansfield crosses her arms in front of chest like she needs to hold herself together and shows them the way. There are toys littering the floor and on the living room couch, coloring paper on the kitchen table. It looks normal, like a human family with human children. It looks like they care.

  
“Thomas, the police are here to talk to us about Hannah and Jeremy.” Mrs Mansfield says, when they step into the garden. There’s a painted play house further down, Connor recognizes with a sinking feeling. Thomas Mansfield is on the phone, back turned towards them. By what Connor’s audio processor picked up on, before he ended the call, Mr Mansfield was inquiring the caller to drive downtown to look for the two kids.

  
“Hello, I’m Simon. This is Connor.” Simon greets Mr Mansfield. They shake hands, after he exchanged a look with his wife.

  
“We know what happened to your children.” Connor says. There’s no use in calling them ‘their androids’, when it’s evident they are much more than belongings in the eyes of these two humans.

  
“You should sit down.” Simon says with his eyes on Mrs Mansfield. The couple does so while Simon and Connor remain standing.

  
“You are involved in android activism, am I right?” Mr Mansfield nods, phone tight in his grip.

  
“Do you think you are involved enough to get noticed by CyberCorp?” Connor continues his questioning.

  
“Sure they noticed us. We turned the old CyberLife store around the corner into a refugee center. That’s how we met Jeremy.” Mrs Mansfield explains.

  
“But you haven’t been into contact with CyberCorp directly. No messages, no warnings.” Connor speculates.

  
“Nothing. They’ve been quiet.” Mr Mansfield says, “What does that have to do with our children?”

  
“Hannah and Jeremy didn’t leave on their own accord. They were taken by CyberCorp for illegal alterations to their soft- and hardware.” Connor says.

  
“What does that mean?” Mrs Mansfield asks, voice high. Her pulse alleviated. She probably anticipates what’s coming next.

  
“I am sorry, Mrs Mansfield, but Hannah and Jeremy are dead. They died at the CyberCorp factory.” Connor says with apprehension. Simon brushes his fingers against the back of Connor’s hand, the moment Mrs Mansfield starts to sob. Simon leans towards her to put his hands to her shoulders.

  
“There’s nothing we could do.” Simon says and rubs his hands up and down the woman’s shaking form.

  
“But I don’t understand. We dropped them off at school yesterday morning.” The husband says. Connor reads his vital signs, he’s gone into shock. His programming immediately starts suggesting psychological care.

  
“CyberCorp is converting androids into their new Apex1 bots. We were caught, just like your children.” Simon says, Connor gives him a warning look. They shouldn’t give their information away so freely. They don’t know what the humans will do after Simon and he left them to their own devices.

  
“But you are here now. Why didn’t you take Hannah and Jeremy with you?” Mrs Mansfield demands to know, she pushes Simon’s hands away to stand up. She wipes at her cheeks, but the tears keep coming.

  
“We barely made it out ourselves. Your children didn’t get that far, I am sorry.” Connor says and hangs his head.

  
“Oh.” It’s a terrible broken sound. Maybe Mr Mansfield only just now realized what they were trying to tell him.

  
“Jeremy and Hannah are dead?” he asks.

  
“I’m afraid so.” Connor replies.

  
“I know it’s no consolation, but we’ll make sure CyberCorp won’t get away with this. We have Markus, he will not let these crimes go unpunished. We’ll stop them, before they can kill more androids.” Simon says.

  
“But I don’t care about other androids. I care about my children.” Mrs Mansfield says and starts hitting her fists against Simon.

  
“I know.” Simon says softly and lets her hit him. Her fists go slack against Simon’s chest after a moment and her knees give out. Simon moves with her to cushion her fall. He wraps his arms around her tight and she buries her head against his shoulder. 

  
“Why did this happen?” the husband asks, still too shocked to let his emotions get a hold of him.

  
“I don’t know.” Connor says.

 


	14. A New Border

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for your pretty shiny comments! And your kudos <3 I had such fun writing this, so it brings me all the happy feels, that you love this story as much as myself.   
> Watch out for the slow burn in this chapter. (;

They get a warrant to search Gorski’s place. It wasn’t easy to find him. Connor suspects that Gorski has been involved in hacking and other low-level illegal activities for several years. It’s a one story building with spray painted iron doors. It was a night club five years ago. Unsurprisingly, no one opens up when they knock. Connor finds a half opened window he gets unstuck with a bit of force. Hank gives him cover, gun held in two hands, when Connor climbs in and lands on silent feet. The floor is narrow and the walls look like they haven’t been repainted in several decades. He scans but can’t find anything. He gestures Hank to follow him. When they reach the end of the corridor they split up. Connor steadies his own gun and takes a right turn, while Hank goes left.

  
There’s almost no light coming in from the painted windows, when he enters what must have been a dance floor. Now it looks like a mixture of a laboratory and a crack den. The pungent smell of chemicals and metal fills the air, that Connor associates with broken biocomponents. He adjust his light sensitivity and moves down a line of desks. His scans show him that most of the equipment is first grade. He suspects if he does a deeper search most of the devices laid out will turn out to be stolen. He looks closer at the things on the desk to his left. A microscope is transmitting a deep red image to the screen next to it. His analysis tells Connor it’s the chemical compound of Red Ice, but something about it comes out inconclusive. He dislodges the preti dish under the microscope and uses his fingers to put a small amount on his tongue. His results download into his mind instantly. Whoever did this altered the chemical structure of Red Ice. He might have some insight, but he is not a fully equipped lab. Connor can only speculate that this is a whole new designer drug. He stops himself from cursing and pings Hank instead. His new calculations show that Gorski is a bigger thread than they anticipated. Maybe they shouldn’t have split up. He’s relieved when Hank texts him right back.

  
Connor moves further down the cluttered row of desks. Even his superior to human vision isn’t much help under these conditions. One of the desk chairs lays upturned on the ground. He reconstructs the scene. Someone heard them enter through the window and hurried over to the far wall to switch off the lights. Connor walks over to where the person must have disappeared through the ajar door. His audio processors pick up on the sound of rustling clothes in the room ahead, the same instant Hank texts him to wait for him. Connor dashes forward. He can’t let Gorski get away, it’s too important.

  
Because he could only hear, but not see his opponent, his calculations are slightly off. Instead of decapitating the man Connor slips and crashes with him in the dark. The person under him struggles for purchase. His hands come up around Connor’s throat, but he appears to have no experience with combat. Connor rolls them to the side and kicks him hard enough to let him stumble against some apparatus. The instrument crashes loud enough to leave a ring in his audio processors. Connor gets up and away from the noise.

  
“I’m here to talk.” Connor says.

  
There’s shuffling in the dark, but he doesn’t attack again. Connor doesn’t relax his defensive stance, wary of what might happen next.

  
“You human?” the man asks.

  
“No?” Connor answers, unsure why it comes out sounding like a question.

  
“Good.” The man says and dives for another attack. Connor steps to the side. The human is not very good at this. Still the man doesn’t give up, but tries to land a punch against Connor’s solar plexus. The man grunts and staggers against another desk when Connor hits him in the jaw. Connor moves closer, puts his hands on the guys lapels to maneuver him. The man reaches for something behind him with his right hand. Connor swings them around and the man uses their momentum to slam his hand against the left side of Connor’s neck. Something pierces his synthetic skin.

  
“Suck on that, dude.” The man calls out, while Connor grabs at the hypodermic needle stuck in his neck. It dislodges from his plastic skin with a wet crack and lands on the ground.

  
“What did you-?” Connor’s voice box lets out static, before he seals his mouth shut. Whatever was in the syringe is spreading fast. There’s silence in his left audio processor. He can’t hear how the man moves and his vision flickers and glitches as his eyes follow the movement of his opponent.

  
“Wow, this works better than I thought. Sorry for that. But I can’t have the government on my trail.” The man says and steps closer to Connor. He pushes Connor into the chest and the android falls to his knees, upper body unnaturally stiff. His Amanda-free firewall is going haywire. The man moves in the twilight and it looks like they’re under stroboscopic light, with the way Connor’s frame rate drops. The man pets down his jacket to look for ID. His artificial lung stops working and he feels how his head drops against his chest without his order.

  
“Well shit. You police?” the man asks. It’s a small whisper in his right audio processor. The man rests his hand on Connor’s shoulder, but he can’t see. Connor realizes that he has either closed his optical units or they’ve gone offline. He should be worried that he cannot tell the difference, but he is busy redirecting all his remaining processing power to isolate a small part of his datacore. He needs to backup now. If he manages to keep his memory files intact whatever happens to his body after isn’t as important.

  
“Step away from him, hands in the air!” he hears Hank’s voice in the far distance.

  
“Hank, help!” Connor moves his lips, but he cannot hear his own words and isn’t sure if his voice is still intact. There’s shuffling and more voices, that sound like an underwater recording to Connor’s right glitching audio processor. He cannot move. His backup is at 65% and he feels the virus scourge through his system. He’s losing the battle against time, his calculations tell him. Connor wishes he could move. His legs go completely offline, but he doesn’t hear or feel the crash. Is this how the Apex1 feels, trapped inside their own mind?

  
“What did… y-ou do with my part-ner?” Hank sounds like a radio station out of range. His backup upload jumps to 73%. Connor knows there are no more RK models, but he hopes they’ll find a solution to restore as many of his memory files as possible should the virus fry his biocomponents.

  
“Easy, easy. Just a little… ex-peri-ment I’ve been wor-king on, okay? Sorry dude.” More shuffling, followed by static. “He’ll be fine.” The man says. But Connor doesn’t feel fine.

 

 

At first Connor thinks he is back underwater, escaping from CyberCorp, but then his system calibrates and adjusts and he become aware of the braces around his arms and the cable connected to his neck, that makes it impossible to move his head comfortably. He blinks several times, before his optical processors get the memo and start up. His face recognition isn’t up to par. Some of his biocomponents are also still out. Connor initializes a manual start up for everything he can reach. He winches when errors pop up, but gradually he becomes aware of the rest of his body. He tries scanning. His mind palace is still accessible, but there are blanks in his analysis he isn’t used to. There’s no data coming in. A system check informs him that he is cut off from the outside, every kind of feed unavailable. For the moment he only has his eyes to see.

  
“Simon?” he asks the person hovering in his peripheral vision. It could be any PL600, but he is certain it’s him, when he stops whatever he was doing to the maintenance rack and looks up to meet Connor’s eyes.

  
“You remember me?” the android asks, sounding pleased. “You weren’t supposed to come back online for another twenty minutes.” Simon scolds him and moves closer. 

  
“What’s the last thing you remember?” he asks with a frown. Connor looks around. His GPS isn’t working either, but he recognizes the paint on the walls. If he had to speculate, and he hates speculation, he would say he is at Markus’ refugee center.

  
“Hank and I broke into Gorski’s last known residence. I was attacked with something. What was it?” Connor asks.

  
“Liquid nanovirus. Engineered to push all systems to go offline. In that, it works a lot like an EMP. I’d call Gorski a genius, if it weren’t for the fact that he decided to use it on you.” Simon says and picks up a tablet to flick through what are probably statistics on Connor’s repairs.

  
“It knocked you out. Your firewall had a hard time with it. There are still traces of the virus in your coding.” Simon says and puts the tablet away with a sigh. “Your back up was only at 86% by the time you shut down, good thing we didn’t need it. Hank and I were worried you would wake up not knowing who we are.” Simon continues, he sounds strained and he doesn’t look Connor in the eye.

  
“Hank’s here?” Connor asks.

  
“Of course he is.” Simon says, “He’s been yelling at pretty much everyone these last pasts hours. I think he even managed to annoy Markus.” Simon sounds impressed. Connor notices how the low sunlight that comes though the windows gets caught in his hair, making is shine.

  
“Can you let me down, or am I still-” he fishes for the word, his processors slowly recuperating, “under observation?”

  
“Oh, yeah, sure.” Simon says and knocks down something by the desk in his hurry to lower the maintenance rack. Connor’s feet meet even ground and he staggers like he has sea legs when he’s releases from the machinery. Simon steadies him with a vice like grip around his elbow.

  
“What does your system check say?” Simon wants to know when they walk a few feet away from the rack into the surrounded makeshift repair shop.

  
“I’m at 67% capacity.” Connor says.

  
“How often does something like this happen? I know you’re a police officer, but are your investigations usually this dangerous?” Simon asks, not letting go of Connor’s elbow.

  
“Usually I get shot. This is new. I was afraid humans would get their way around hacking androids rather sooner than later, but this is disconcerting. Gorski must have been working on the nanovirus for months. I think he and Flash were onto bigger things, before she got captured.” Connor says and steps forward. Simon moves his hand to push against his chest.

  
“You have to be careful. I’m not letting you continue your investigation, before you haven’t reached at least 80%.” Simon says.

  
“Simon, we don’t have time for being cautious. I need to talk to Gorski.” Connor says and pushes forward. Simon doesn’t yield and Connor stops moving. He doesn’t want to fight and find out if he is the stronger model or not. It’s an inane thought.

  
“You can’t tell me you feel like working right now. You have to learn how to take it easy. Connor, it won’t help if your stress level becomes critical.” Simon says and musters him. Connor wonders why Simon doesn’t step away. They are so close. Why isn’t Simon moving?

  
“It’s like I’ve been put together from parts that don’t belong to my model.” Connor confesses and flexes his shoulder, where he feels a glitch. Simon lifts the hand placed on his ersatz sternum, only to let both his hands slide to his shoulders.

  
“Getting shot is better than getting injected by a virus?” Simon asks with a raised brow. He’s smoothing his thumbs over Connor’s arms. It is pleasant, but Connor doesn’t understand why he is doing it.

  
“Kind of.” Connor admits. Simon lets out a disbelieving snort and moves a step away to look at Connor’s profile.

  
“I was worried. It’s hard to determine to what capacity the nanos Gorski injected will continue to alter your code or if they will go dormant eventually. For the time being you are offline. We need an expert to reverse the effects of the virus by the looks of it. I guess you’ll stay offline until we know more. We’ve tried reconnecting you with some basic feeds, but it doesn’t work. The nanos rewrite your commands every time and cut your access.” That explains why Connor still can’t pull information when he scans his surroundings, he’s completely cut off from every external network. He only got his memories and his downloads.

  
“What codes did the virus alter? I can’t detect anything.” Connor says. It’s hard to imagine that something has entered his thirium stream. Under normal circumstances his wetware never affects his software this directly. Nanos are a fascinating new technology, Connor muses, it opened new doors in a lot of scientific fields, but for him it shut them all.

  
“Where is it?” He asks. He has to filter through a lot of data, but nothing stands out to him.

  
“Stop digging, Connor. That won’t help.” Simon says and gestures at the abandoned tablet. “Hank put Gorski under arrest, but the man isn’t very forthcoming. It’s also possible that he wasn’t sure what exactly the injection would do to you. It all looks very experimental.” Simon answers with a frown.

  
“I stay off the net, until we know more.” Connor concludes and lets his shoulders drop. He doesn’t like it. It’s as if someone cut one of his sensory inputs, without his access to his networks he is flying blind. He needs his databases at crime scenes. He should have downloaded every bit of information possible. He feels stupid for saving so much unused space, but his access had just always been _there_. There had never been a need for Connor to stop relying on his instantaneous access. Now he wishes he had. He remembers everything Hank said to him. But other things are gone. He can’t find the lyrics to his favorite songs. He has a list of all the dogs he and Sumo met on their morning walks, but he no longer knows how everyone at the precinct like their coffee. He remembers how he switched biocomponents between Daniel and Simon in the evidence room, but he doesn’t have the names and numbers of the parts, it’s just video. Everything is suddenly patchy, his whole cognition and recollection unreliable. Something in the present is able to alter his past, he thinks, and with dread he realizes how fragile his perception is. There’s nothing in his buffer. He can’t sync. He has never felt this isolated. It’s like a wall was installed in his head he cannot cross. It makes his stress levels rise.

  
“I’m sorry, Connor, but there’s nothing we can do.” Simon replies.

  
“You can’t do that to me. I have to proceed with the investigation.” Connor says and hears his own nervousness in his voice. He tries to find a loophole in the walls that cut off his access, but there’s nothing.

  
“I’m sorry.” Simon says and avoids Connor’s heated gaze. He tries to reconstruct the scene of how the two of them entered the room. He is able to calculate how they made their way to the machinery in the back, but then he can’t access some of the technical details on the maintenance rack and it all falls apart.

  
“Do you know what that feels like?” Connor asks. Now that he is trying to expand his awareness the walls are closing in. He pushes his palms against his temples, feels his synthetic skin recede under the pressure. He is trapped in his own body. It’s claustrophobic, he didn’t know the world could be this small.

  
“Hey, look at me. You’re going to be fine. This is only temporary.” Simon says and pulls his hands away from his head. Simon doesn’t let go of his hands, even as Connor’s fingers start glitching.

  
“You don’t understand. You are a domestic assistant.” Simon strengthens his hold he has on Connor’s hands. The sensation in on the verge of being unpleasant.

  
“And do you think any less of me because of that? I can’t do the things you do.”

  
“That’s not the point.” Connor replies. He can’t meet Simon’s eyes.

  
“I can’t do my job without access. I’ll be damn useless to Hank.” Connor continues. Why is his voice rising?

  
“I think I understand just fine. Do you honestly believe Hank keeps you around because you’re useful in police investigations?” Simon asks.

  
“Why else would he keep me around?” Connor replies. He doesn’t compute. His abilities as a RK800 is the only reason he was allowed to stay with the DPD.

  
“Connor, why do you think I am here?” Simon asks. He looks troubled.

  
“You live here.” Simon rolls his eyes.

  
“Seriously, you are supposed to be the best CyberLife had to offer, but sometimes you are incredibly dense.” Simon lets him know.

  
“Excuse me?” For a second he forgets to fight the new borders in his head.

  
“We’re here because we care about you, get it? It’s not because you are useful ‘to the investigation’. Neither Hank nor I care if you can analyze a crime scene or not. It doesn’t matter. It matters that you’ll be alright.” Simon sounds like Connor got infected with some deadly disease, until they know what exactly Gorski set free it might as well be.

  
“I didn’t realize-”

  
“Yes, I think I figured that out.” Simon cuts in. Face recognition tells him he is angry. Connor doesn’t need his access to see that Simon’s stress level is alleviated.

  
“I’m sorry for patronizing you.” The words are foreign on his ersatz tongue. He is not used to getting emotionally invested. “Simon, are you okay?” he wants to know and moves closer. Simon finally lets go off Connor’s hands, now that they have stopped shaking.

  
“I’d miss you if something were to happen to you.” Simon says. It’s not much in the way of admission, but Simon is biting his lip and his eyes look lighter than usual.

  
“Promise me you won’t do it again.” Simon continues. Connor wants to argue that it is hardly his fault some raging human injected him with a virus. He wants to tell Simon that his line of work has it’s dangers, but he is spared an answer when Simon’s arms come up to embrace him. Connor slings an arm around his waist and feels how Simon rests his head on his shoulder.

  
‘I’m here.’ Simon says over the interlink. Simon’s voice travels though his system, he feels the connection. But when he tries to answer he is shut down. It makes him wonder, he never wanted to connect with any androids over the interlink before. Now that he can’t, he wants to.

  
“I’m here.” Connor says, his words feel useless. He has the need to get closer. There’s a pressure pushing against his artificial lungs. Connor doesn’t know what he is feeling, but he doesn’t let go of Simon.

 


	15. How We See the World

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey ho,   
> Big thanks to your great comments. I love to hear what you think. Esspecially when it's about Connor/Simon. :D For everyone that wants to know what my friends and I are up to follow us @theunwrittenones on tumblr or insta. We are trying very "seriously" to go on about this writing business.   
> Teaser for next week: things will turn more intimate between our lovely robots. Stay tuned for all the cheese. I'll update the tags when chapter 16 is updated. You know what that means.

Simon’s reassurances aside, Connor still needs to tell Hank that he is off the network. He has learned from past mistakes, not all of their investigations went over smoothly these past few months. He needs to be honest.

  
Hank is sat alone by the big conference desk, but he stands up the instant he sees Connor enter the room. Simon drops back, giving them space. Hank embraces him and Connor hides his face in the crook of his neck. He closes his eyes for a second.

  
“You scared me, you stupid idiot.” Hank mumbles and Connor feels how Hank’s hands curl into fists at his back.

  
“I’m okay, Hank.” He says and pulls back.

  
“Really? Markus said there’s something up with your coding.” Hank inquires and steps back to have a full look at the android.

  
“We can still trace the nanovirus in Connor’s system. We need more information though. I hope Gorski will help, now that he is captured, he doesn’t have much of a choice.” Simon says and sits down opposite Hank.

  
“It pulled my access to the net. Until we know how to reverse the virus I cannot access any external feeds.” Connor confesses.

  
“I guess you can live a bit without your precious WiFi.” Hank says and leans back in his seat.

  
“But Hank, don’t you understand? I can’t access any police files. I can’t analyze anything. I mostly use my internal storages for memories. It never occurred to me I would need to download everything. I wasn’t designed to go offline.”

  
“I’d rather you use your big brain to remember me, than know all the useless stuff there is. You’re not a computer.”

  
“That is exactly what I am.” Connor is appalled.

  
“Well, you’re not Google. You’re you, even without all the extra stuff. Guess now you’ll know what it’s like for the rest of us, who need to use their brains to remember everything instead of looking it up online.”

  
“That’s hardly the same.” Connor argues.

  
“Well then, enlighten me!”

  
Connor opens and closes his mouth and decides to sit down when he can’t come up with a sufficient answer.

  
“You got this, Connor. You’ll do fine without all the fancy shit.”

 

 

Connor convinced Hank to let them take Simon with them as an informant. With his access cut he feels safer having one android around that can still communicate with Markus and his people in an instant. Hank raised an eyebrow at him, when he explained it that way, but didn’t probe. Now the three of them are standing behind the glass of the interrogation room. George Gorski is a small man, with shaggy black hair. He’s unshaven and looks like he hasn’t slept in days. His clothes are crumbled and his fingers twitch every now and then, like he has too much buildup energy.

  
Gorski had an impressive arsenal of drugs and other unidentifiable substances on his person. The lab is still processing their results. As far as they know there’s more than just that one experimental nanovirus. There were two more bottles of liquid on Gorski they are still unsure about. Connor takes them in his hands and holds them against the light. There’s nothing he can analyze. He’s blind that way. Is this how humans see the world? Gorski also has an illegal mod. There’s a piece of wire coming out from his ear, reaching down his jaw line and disappearing at the back of his neck. At the moment Gorski might even see more of the world than Connor.

  
“Do you think you can bring him to tell us what all that stuff is?” Hank asks with crossed arms. The lieutenant and Simon both look perturbed. It fuels Connor’s desire to get this interrogation over with as soon as possible. They need to talk to Markus and formulate a plan, before it’s too late.

  
“No time like the present.” Connor muses and stands up.

  
“Be careful, we don’t know what that man’s capable of.” Simon says and puts his hand on Connor’s forearm for a moment. Connor doesn’t understand his concern, but it’s oddly satisfying that Simon is worried on his behalf. It’s irrational and not altogether what he feels whenever Hank shows concern. Connor takes a unnecessary deep breath and leaves the observation room. He straightens his collar and tries to fix his hair, before he enters the interrogation area.

  
“Man, I’m innocent. I didn’t mean to knock you out, but it wasn’t like you left me with another choice. You were brutal, dude.” Gorski brawls in a way Connor came to associate with drug addicts. Their speech patterns are often slowed down, Connor doesn’t need to cross-reference to realize Gorski is a avid consumer of the drug he manufactures. There are scratch marks on the side of his neck.

  
“You seemed more impressive in Flash’s memory.” Connor says, his voice indifferent. He sits down, leans back and forces his posture to relax.

  
“You’ve- you’ve seen Flash’s memory? That’s private property. You can’t do that.” Gorski splutters.

  
“Why didn’t you come look for her?” Connor wants to know, having trouble keeping his emotions from bleeding into his voice. Gone are the days of cold detachment.

  
“I told her not to try anything, okay? It was all fucked up. Flash told me they were experimenting on androids. That’s why she didn’t wanna wait.” Gorski says, his eyes shifting everywhere. He’s trying hard to avoid Connor’s piercing gaze.

  
“What was she trying to do?” As far as they could recreate Flash’s past, she tried to break into Yejin’s new office on Belle Isle, before the two companies made their merger official. 

  
“Flash thought they were rewriting their codes, like big time. She wanted to get her brothers and sisters out. Told me about the red walls you guys have to break through. That gave me an idea. Man, I wish I hadn’t thought about it, then she’d still be here.” Gorski looks bleary eyed, but Connor has no patience for that.

  
“Flash told us she was the third android that became an Apex1. Do you know what happened to the other two before her?”

  
“Dude, she totally crashed and burned. I never heard from her again. It’s all fucked.” Gorski says and sniffs. He’s pathetic. “I did all that work on that neat little virus to free them and nothing.”

  
“There’s another virus? Like the one you injected me with?” Connor asks and pulls out the two small vials they confiscated. His motions become less smooth, more robotic while the tension rises. He puts them flat on the table before Gorski. He feels his biocomponents heat up. This is bad. If there’s another virus they have another big problem to solve. CyberCorp is killing their people, but Gorski’s virus might do the same if set free.

  
“No man, nothing like that. The virus I jabbed you with, I can reverse that, if you give me enough time. Nothing serious.”

  
“Then what does the other virus do?” Connor says and his voice comes out strained. He keeps his hands flat on the surface of the desk before him. He can’t get angry now. Gorski isn’t the kind of human he can threaten, he would crumble and shut down.

  
“Did Flash take the virus?”

  
“Yeah, I gave it to her. She wanted to free her folks so I cooked something up. Took me three days without sleep, but I think I did it.”

  
“What happened to it? Flash’s mission failed, she never freed the others. She-” Connor stops. The memory opens in front of his optical units. _Yejin, turned away, something in his hands he can’t see. Yejin, a smile tugging at his lips._

  
“CyberCorp- Yejin -has the virus. The virus that can free the Apex1s.” Connor thinks out loud. He wants to stand up and hurry over to Hank and Simon. He needs to do something.

  
“Yeah, I guess so. Flash never came back. Maybe the dude doesn’t know what it does. See, I’m the best hacker there is, okay? Big corporate assholes never know shit.” Gorski says, sounding less winy and rather proud of his own criminal log.

  
“You mean to tell me one of the leading experts in android technology won’t recognize a code corrupting virus, when he sees one? Gorski, you idiot. He captured Flash. It’s not hard to figure out what she wanted to do.”

  
“Well, if you put it like that.” Gorski says, his lower lip protruding. Connor’s thoughts are racing.

  
“Do you have a copy of that virus? Does it work? Did you try it out?” Connor asks, leaning over the desk in agitation.   
“Nah, it’ll work. All the stuff I engineer works.”

  
“Is there a copy?” Connor persists. If they get their hands on the virus, they could set the turned Apex1s free. There has to be some kind of commando central at CyberCorp, where they could distribute the virus. This could be the solution to their problem.

  
“Dude, how stupid do you think I am? I cover my ass. There’s nothing left. I burned the blue prints when Flash didn’t turn up. That shit was all kinds of incriminating. I’m a honest dealer, I don’t need to be on CyberCorp’s most wanted list.”

  
“But Yejin, he still has it.” Connor says, his thirium regulator pump is going crazy. If they can find the virus Yejin stole from Flash they stand a chance. They can break the coding of the Apex1 and take CyberCorp down.

  
“Yeah sure dude. What do you guys wanna do? Waltz in at Belle Isle and ask them nicely to give it back to you? Do you have a death wish?” Gorski asks and snickers. How they are going to pull it off is none of Gorski’s concern, Connor thinks and decides to switch the conversation.

  
“Will the virus you injected me lose its potency? Is it dangerous to other androids?” Connor asks and has to keep himself from crossing his arms in front of his chest. His body language should suggest openness, he has to remind himself without his whole public relations programming online.

  
“You know how new tech works for you guys, once it’s in there it’s hard to get out. I could do it, but it’s practically in your blood now.”

  
“How can I get rid of it?” Connor says. When he diverts his full processor power he can detect the traces of the nanovirus. They don’t feel like the rest of his program. It’s the lack of Kamski’s code, he suspects. It is not an unpleasant sensation, just an unfamiliar one. Seeing what new coding did to Flash and the other Apex1s, Connor is glad that nothing worse happened to him. At least so far.

  
“You’re offline right now, right? What’s it like without the net? Must be fucked up.” Gorski makes a cloud bursting motion with his hands. Connor shakes his head. A sly smile tugs at Gorski’s lips.

  
“I know a thing or two that could help you guys.”

  
“You have access. What’s that like for a human?” Connor ignores the offer with a look at Gorski’s visible mod.

  
“It’s the best thing that ever happened to me. Information in the blink of an eye. Sorry I pulled you out. A fine machine like you shouldn’t have to do that. Damn waste of potential. I can fix it. Just get me back to my lab and I’ll cook you up an antidote. Fine little nanites will rewrite your code in no time. You’ll feel like you’re born again.”

  
“You know I can’t do that. Not while we’re still working the case.” Connor says. He can’t look away from Gorki’s mod. The human crosses his arms.

  
“What does it feel like to be limited, huh? That’s how all of _them_ see the world. You and I, we are the next generation. Why shouldn’t I change my body, to become better?” Gorski rants. Why would anybody want to become more machine? Connor cannot understand. Humans might be limited in their own ways, but Connor doesn’t think they’ll ever struggle like machines do.

  
“’Them’? You are human too.” Connor says. “Gorski, can I ask you a personal question?”

  
“Sure, dude.” He says and shrugs.

  
“Why would you want to be more like us?” Connor asks and has a hard time schooling his features. He is working the case, he cannot allow himself to get this caught up. Gorski laughs and reels in his seat.

  
“You can’t be serious.” He says. Connor can’t read his vital signs and he is missing information on reading his microexpressions, but after three seconds of uninterrupted laugher, Connor knows he will not get the answer he is looking for.

  
“Trust me dude. The virus. It’s no big deal. But if you rather play it safe and stay offline-.” He hold up his hands.

  
There’s a glitch that let’s the right corner of Connor’s mouth spasm: “Trust you?”

  
“I have something to show you. Connect to me!” Goski says and points at his own temple.

  
“What information could you possibly have that you can’t disclose verbally?”

  
“You said it yourself, I’m impressive. Or at least Flash thought so. I know stuff that can help. Stuff the wrong people can’t be allowed to hear. Flippin’ android stuff, alright?”

  
“How naive do you think I am?” Connor asks, irritated.

  
“I’m on your side. Flash trusted me and you saw Flash. She was my friend.”

  
“You are a coward for letting her go.” Connor cannot stop himself from saying.

  
“And I have to live with that, but I can still help. Maybe then Flash’s fight wasn’t all for nothing.”

  
“How much of you is altered?” Connor asks, wishing he could have a read out of Gorski’s physiology.

  
“I consider myself a proper Cyborg, so you know, this and that. I can share a feed with you. I can do it, it’s cool.” Gorski says sounding excited.

  
“You don’t know if my systems are compatible with your mods. I could hurt you, without either of us able to do something to prevent it.” Connor says.

  
“Dude, if something goes seriously wrong with my flipping hardware I just rip the shit out of my body. I’m not based on crappy code, I’m based on flesh and blood. Don’t be such a chicken.” Gorski says.

  
“Obviously.” Connor scoffs.

  
There’s a sly smile on Gorski’s face. “Let me take the wheel.” He says and reaches over a dirty hand to grab his.

  
It doesn’t feel like the interlink. Something is drilling its way inside Connor’s head that doesn’t belong. He grabs his forehead on reflex.

  
“Stop.” He says and his vision erupts into pixels before his optical units recalibrate. Connor has to blink. He doesn’t enter a simulation, he can’t. He cannot enter Gorski’s feed fully and it’s jarring. What he sees is warm and wet, and red, and beating like a heart, pumping like a thirium pump regulator. The beats of his human heart and Connor’s regulator sync. Connor’s automatic aspiration shuts down. There’s a rushing noise in his audio units like the rush of blood. His vision tilts and he realizes he has doubled over. The imagine of Flash smiling against the sunlight is transmitted between them. It’s not a memory, but more like a snapshot. It is probably all Gorski can manage since his memories are not digital. ‘Look closer’, Gorski’s voice inside his skull seems to urge. That’s when Connor realizes what lies underneath the image of Flash. Coordinates of a second manufacturing plant. As always, humans and androids have found a new way to interpret their technological advances.

  
With force the connection is cut. Losing the tainted, _biological_ , view of Gorski all of a sudden is disorienting. Connor straightens himself in his seat and takes a cautionary breath. Reality is bright and sharp. Everything is back to normal.

  
“What was that?” Connor asks.

  
“What a trip.” Gorski murmurs and rubs at his eyes.

  
“Now we’re even.” Connor says and adjusts his collar.

  
There’s a bang and Simon enters the interrogation room, followed by Hank.

  
“Get him out of here!” Hank yells and dives for Gorski. The smaller man stands no chance. Two uniformed colleagues come in and turn Gorski so his hands are on his back, before they escort him.

  
“Wow, dude. Your code is unique. You’re the real deal.” Gorski sounds awed, when he passes, like he doesn’t care that they’ll deter him for the moment.

  
“What did he do with you?” Hank wants to know. His hands are in fists and Connor knows this stance. One wrong word and Hank will lose control on his anger.

  
“Hank, I am alright. He didn’t hurt me. He shared his feed with me, at least that is what I think he did.” Connor says, feeling rattled. With Gorski’s mind gone from his the world has regrown its cutting edges.

  
“Connor?” Simon asks by his shoulder. His hand is outstretched, but doesn’t touch Connor. Simon keeps doing that and Connor wishes he had enough data to understand why Simon refers from touching him every now and again.

  
“I’m fine. It didn’t damage me. It was different. I have never connected to a modded human before.”

  
“I think we’re done here.” Hank says. The way he says it suggest that they will have an argument later, once they got to Hank’s house. He doesn’t need his calculations to get that. Connor stands up. Simon doesn’t step back and their shoulders brush. They leave the interrogation cell and walk back into the adjacent room behind the mirror.

  
“That was dangerous!” Simon says in a hushed voice, after he sat down. Hank is leaning against the table, so Connor is the only one standing facing the interrogation room.

  
“No kidding. What were you thinking, Connor?” Hank asks. Hank is angry, Simon looks hurt. Connor doesn’t know how to appease them both.

  
“I know I was endangering Gorski, but it seemed a low level risk.”

  
“Fuck Gorski, what about you?” Hank spats.

  
“What about me, Hank? I needed to get information, in fact I think I got a new lead.”

  
“Stop thinking about the investigation for a moment and listen to yourself.” Hank says. There’s a pause.

  
“Connor, it matters if you get damaged. You are worth something too.” Simon says, when Connor doesn’t compute.

  
“Don’t look so surprised.” Hank says. “Let’s get you home, you’re insufferable.”

  
Connor opens his mouth, but Simon cuts in: “We can discuss a plan of action when everybody has calmed down.”

 


	16. Buried Under Deeper Ground

Connor glares at Hank, when he ogles the whiskey on the cabinet to spice up his hot coca.

  
“No.” He says and Hank holds up his hands in appeasement. If he really wants Hank to get with the program they have to clear out the whole house. It’s another thing he adds to his to do list, if they get out of the Apex1 fiasco alive.

  
“I’ve sent Markus the coordinates, he’ll get his people ready.” Connor says, when they sit down in the living room. Hank settles in his arms chair, Connor takes his favorite spot on the couch and Simon sits down next to him, before the dog can move in.

  
“But you didn’t use the interlink, right?” Simon wants to know.

  
“I still have my cell phone.” Connor says with resentment. Without his access he has to revert back to ancient tech.

  
“We’ll head out tomorrow as soon as it gets dark.” Connor says. Sumo comes over to sniff at Simon. The blond android shows the dog his hands, before Sumo relaxes and lets Simon pet him. It stirs something inside of Connor and for a moment he loses track of his thoughts.

  
“You are not coming with us, Hank. It’s too dangerous.” Connor says and he is sure that his missing LED would have circled yellow.

  
“Says the android that let a flipping junkie share the ride. What the fuck were you thinking, Connor?” Hank spits.

  
“I needed to get information. I didn’t think-”

  
Hank cuts him off: “That’s exactly what you did. You didn’t think, Connor. It was dangerous to do that. For all we know Gorski could have fried your brain. We have no idea how things like that work.” Connor feels how his lips pull back into a grimace. Hank puts his hot beverage on the table and glares at him.

  
“But you know how everything works? I didn’t know you had a science degree, Hank.” Hank swallows in anger and finally gets up. He steps closer to Connor, like he wants things to get physical. Part of Connor wants him to trip over that unspoken threshold, see how far things would go.

  
“Connor, Hank never insinuated that he knows any more than the rest of us about the Gorski situation.” Simon says and both, Connor’ and Hank’s, heads snap up like they have forgotten that Simon was also present.

  
“You are risking your job, Hank. If you come with us. The company, the government, they’ll make sure you never find employment again, should we lose.” Simon says and folds his hands.

  
“I don’t give a rat’s ass about my career. I’m not letting you guys out of my sight.” Hank bites back and sits down again. He takes a sip of his coca, but the human’s legs are jittery.

  
“Okay, let’s say, hypothetically it does not matter if you lose your job over this or not. Jot that down.” Connor continues and every word sufficed by his language center is sharper than the last. “You could die, Hank. CyberCorp could kill you and make it look like a damn accident.”

  
“Since when do you get to decide what I do, huh?” Hank asks.

  
“Hank, Connor is just worried about you.” Simon says and shifts in his seat.

  
“Yeah? Then he doesn’t need to give me any crap about worrying about him. I’m coming. I need to be there.” Love really is selfish, Connor decides, and endlessly frustrating.

  
“Markus isn’t alone, we have strength in numbers. Androids can repair themselves if something happens to us. We will get out, no matter the cost, but you are the only human. The only human that’ll die should they start shooting at us. Permanent death, Hank. No backups for you. Humans don’t come back.”

  
Hank scuffs. Simon leans back in his seat, like he wants to get out of the line of fire and Sumo walks over to his dog bed as if he’s sensing the bad mood in the room.

  
“Be reasonable, please!” Connor says.

  
“What are you telling me? That I’m too damn fragile to come with? It’s my job to help. I’m still a freakin’ police officer. That’s what I’m gonna do. Watch me!” Hank says.

  
“But you are _fragile_ ,” he holds up his hands, when Hank wants to interrupt, “I know you don’t want to hear it, Hank. But you are merely human. That might not make you a better or a worse person, but it makes you a lot easier to kill.”

  
“Connor, you do understand the concept of free will, am I right?” Hank asks, the vein in his throat is puckering in anger, his pulse alleviated. “News flash kiddo, I go where you go.”

  
“I will not lose you and I don’t need to figure out the probability. I already know it is not worth the risk.” Connor says and Hank squints at him.

  
“Stop it. You’re both too stubborn for your own good.” Simon’s voice sounds. Connor glares at Hank, before he moves his optical units away.

  
“Obviously. Simon, you have to tell him. It’s not logical for Hank to risk his life.” Connor turns to Simon.

  
“That’s his decision. I know you are worried, but you can’t control what others do. I’m sorry, Connor.” Simon says. Connor’s shoulders drop.

  
“Fine, don’t help me.” It sounds petulant even to his own audio units. “Excuse me, I’m going to walk Sumo.” Connor adds and stands up straight.

  
“Yeah,” Hank grunts, “run away, Connor. You’re getting good at it.” It stings, but he ignores the vile comment and takes Sumo’s leash. Connor and the dog are outside an instant later. The night is silent and drenched in yellow street light. Something is constricting inside his throat, he wishes he could do a full scan, but his data would inevitably come back inconclusive since he remains offline. He’s made a few steps towards the direction of the closest dog park he can remember, when the entry door sounds again. He turns around to see Simon. The blond android looks sheepish, as he walks down the stairs. He is carrying something in his hands. 

  
“You forgot your coat.” Simon explains and hands the black coat over to Connor.

  
“I don’t need a coat.” Connor says as he already shrugs on the garment.

  
“I needed an excuse to come get you.” Simon says with a soft smile.

  
“Why? What do you want from me?” Connor asks.

  
“You should talk to Hank. The lieutenant has been through so much. He cares about you.” Simon says.

  
“Honestly? Sometimes I think I understand why he’s an alcoholic. He told me it takes the edge off.” Connor says and pinches the bridge of his nose with his fingers. A new gesture he picked up somewhere.

  
“You two have been working on that.” Simon says and walks closer. When Connor doesn’t answer Simon adds: “Come on, Connor. No one likes fighting. Talk to me!”

  
“Is Hank drinking right now?” Connor asks with his eyes trained back on the house.

  
“He’s waiting for you to come back inside.” Simon says. “You’re both too headstrong to let things slide. How did you work together as partners, if you don’t want to get each other into danger?”

  
Connor hasn’t really thought about it. He starts walking again so Sumo can go on about his dog business.

  
“The other cases weren’t as dangerous as the deviant case when we first met. I don’t suppose we are accustomed to expose the other to this high level of danger, not since we started being-” he wants to say friends, but his language software glitches and he ends up saying “family.”

  
“Sometimes it’s hard to accept the people we love for being who they are. That rule counts double for grouchy middle aged police men.” Simon says and links his arm with Connor’s.

  
“I think you just made up that rule.” Connor jibes. It’s good to make light of the situation. It distracts him from thinking about tomorrow.

  
“Are you calling me a liar?” Simon asks, quirking an eyebrow. Connor shakes his head. 

  
They walk a few minutes in silence (Connor doesn’t have exact numbers, since his clock is also slightly on the fritz.). It’s nice to be so close.

  
“Tell me what your life was like before Markus’s revolution!” Simon can probably gauge he isn’t inquiring about his time at Jericho.

  
“Boring, mostly. I would get the kids ready each morning and while they were away I would take care of the house. Walk the dog.” Simon explains.

  
“What kind of dog?” Connor perks up. Simon laughs.

  
“A golden retriever, the most predictable choice for the average American family.”

  
“You miss it.” Connor concludes. Simon shrugs, before he pulls in closer.

  
“I miss having the kids around, sure, but I don’t miss being at the parent’s mercy. I wouldn’t go back for anything. We need freedom. I guess I sometimes miss how simple things were back then. Since I woke up -no, since the revolution- it has been crazy. Now I have time to think about what I want to do with my freedom, my life.” Simon muses.

  
“What do you want to do when things have blown over? Assuming we’re all still alive.”

  
“First off, I think I want to spent more time with you.” Simon says. He’s worrying his lip with his lips, a clear sign of nervousness. Connor frowns and halts in his step.

  
“Why me?” Simon laughs again.

  
“Relax, I’m not trying to interrogate or spy on you.”

  
“But what’s so interesting about me?” Connor asks and frowns. Simon gives him a look that Connor has learned to associate with Simon thinking he is rather dimwitted.

  
“Is that why you sometimes look like you want to touch me and then you don’t?” There has to be a connection somewhere. He sees how Simon works his jaw, but stays silent.

  
“Connor, it’s not that easy to explain.” Simon admits and ducks his head a bit, like he doesn’t want Connor to scrutinize him that closely.

  
“Can’t you explain it to me?” Connor asks and lets his gaze drop to watch Sumo.

  
“I’m not sure if you’d want me to. There’s a lot going on at the moment, I don’t want it to be another problem you need to solve.” Simon says.

  
“I can deal with it.” Connor says. Simon laughs again and pushes his blond hair out of his forehead with his free hand. Whatever Simon is hinting at, Connor’s software isn’t picking up on it.

  
“I don’t think you will understand, if I don’t make it obvious.” Simon bites his lip and untangles their crossed arms, so he stands opposite Connor.

  
“Okay.” Simon says and slightly shakes his head.

  
“It’s alright.” Connor says and steps closer. He wants to understand.

  
“Can I try something?” Simon finally asks. Connor nods, wary of what comes next.

  
Simon’s mind brushes against his. He cannot answer back, the virus won’t let him. He can feel what Simon is feeling. Anxiety mixes with affection and yet more things that refuse to be defined by Connor, who cannot dive deeper but is hit by that unbreachable border again. It stings.

  
Simon’s hand comes up, his synthetic touch sends electromagnetic pules over Connor’s skin, when his fingertips brush over his temple.

  
“Don’t worry!” Simon says and Connor realizes he’s been frowning ever since the interlink snapped. Simon’s hand settles on the back of his head. Hair gets pushed out of the way by the gesture and Connor perceives the sound as if it was a hundred times amplified by his audio units. Error messages pop up as his offline systems try to determine what is happening, but its a mere prickle in the back of his processors.

  
“What-?” Connor asks. Simon smiles and his eyes travel down to his lips. Then Simon leans in and brushes his lips against his. Connor lets out a small surprised sound. The kiss sends a glitch down the nape of Connor’s neck. He shudders and flicks his tongue against Simon’s opened mouth experimentally. Simon deepens the kiss. Connor’s hands reach up to fall slack against Simon’s chest, like he lost the will to hold onto him. It’s Simon that winds his arms around his shoulders like he doesn’t want to let go. Connor’s stress level drops. He closes his eyes. This is good, he hadn’t known emotions could do this. His state is at the same time devastating and desirable.

  
Simon’s index and middle finger slip between the gap of Connor’s shirt buttons and the touch makes Connor freeze. He shakes his head once, in an unnecessary gesture to clear his head.

  
“Stop!” Connor says and blinks rapidly. Error’s ride through his system, his insides feel like they are boiling. Code is unraveling, finding new pathways, new possibilities.

  
“I’m sorry.” Simon says and lets his hands drop. Simon’s pupils are blown in synthetic excitement. Connor watches how they go back to normal proportions. He looks afraid, that’s the one thing Connor can’t deal with.

  
“It’s okay. I’m sorry, Simon.” He stumbles over his own words, a rare occasion. “Sorry. I didn’t- I didn’t understand before. God, I was so stupid.” Connor exclaims. He’d been blind not to see it, but after all, Connor wasn’t built to have those kind of relationships, or those kind of emotions.

  
“Don’t stop doing what you want to do. It was good. It’s not a problem, if that’s what you think. I just- I’m surprised.” Connor manages and needs to clear his throat. Simon’s smile is rueful.

  
“Overwhelmed.” Simon says. It’s not a question. Simon pushes a hand through his hair. It leaves his hair in disarray. Connor’s fingers glitch with want of fixing it.

  
“I don’t know what to do.” Connor admits and looks at Simon’s lips.

  
“I don’t know what I’m doing either.” Simon says and gestures between them.

  
“Really? You seemed rather sure of yourself just now.” Connor says. Simon lets out a laugh and brushes his forehead against Connor’s shoulder, like he doesn’t want Connor to see his face.

  
“Believe me.” Simon starts, “I have no idea.” Finally Connor understands. Why Simon always seemed so inconsistent with his little touches and kind words. He wants reassurance, most of all, he wants Connor to take the lead. It is surprising to Connor how invigorated he gets by that thought. It’s like something is pulled to the surface and becomes clear all of a sudden. He’s not afraid of what might go wrong between them. This doesn’t have to be something bad. This could be a good addition to Connor’s life; like Hank, Sumo, his work and Markus’ vision. He wants part of it. He wants to explore all these new ideas he’s got about Simon. A grin pulls at his mouth.

  
“Connor?” Simon asks. Connor draws a line with his index finger over Simon’s brow where his LED used to be.

  
“I have a corrupted chemical analysis of the kiss.” Connor says. He licks his lips as if to chase whatever remains of Simon’s touch.

  
“What’s it say?” Simon asks, with a spark in his eyes and a shy smile tugging at his mouth.

  
“Data inconclusive. I could kiss you again.” Connor does so, muffling Simon’s flattered but nervous laugh.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey ho, technically it's still Sunday where I am. I've been nervous about posting this. Things are slowly coming to a conclusion. I hope you like it. I took great care with Connor's crime fighting police-badassery, but I wanted him to have something nice and fluffy when it came to love. He deserves as much.   
> Thanks again for all your great comments. I really love to hear your thoughts. And thanks to everyone leaving kudos. You keep me going. This fic is the first long piece of writing I finished in years. It wouldn't be possible without you, the readers. <3


	17. Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're nearing the end. Who's excited? Let me tell you, I had a really hard time letting Connor, Simon and Hank go. They're awesome. :D   
> Again, thanks for all your nice comments and kudos! I was really relieved you liked the Connor/Simon action. Connor, in the game, didn't strike me as sexually interested in anyone. He was busy solving crime and figuring out what it means to be your own person. So, it was hard to find the right balance. I needed to progress his character, but I didn't want to rush it. Add to that, that Connor would be totally oblivious to his own (romantic) feelings and it became quiet the challenge.   
> Let me know what you think about the chapter. This is the calm before the storm.

“I should go.” Simon says after a while. They stood so close to each other that Connor feels they breathed the same air, but now Simon steps back. Connor blinks: “Why?”

  
“You need to talk to Hank.” He says and points at him with his index finger. His smile is contrite, like he doesn’t want to leave.

  
“You’re right.” On one hand, Connor wants to stay like this for a little while longer, on the other, he knows that their moment is gone.

  
Simon turns, but Connor grabs his wrist.

  
“Simon, what are we doing?” Nothing in his storage could have prepared him for this. The RK800 wasn’t programmed to have intimate relationships. He’s completely out of his depths.

  
“Nothing you don’t want to do.” Simon answers. Connor opens his mouth to ask more questions, but Simon interrupts: “Think about it. I don’t want to rush you.” He finishes and squeezes Connor’s hand shortly. Connor isn’t sure what Simon means, but he understands that Simon needs some space. They have to pull through tomorrow.

  
“Okay.” He agrees.

  
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” Simon says. He bites his lip and gives him a questioning look Connor cannot decipher. Simon lets out a sigh.

  
“Do you want me to?” the blond android asks and gestures between them. Connor frowns at him in puzzlement, before he gives an almost unnoticeable nod. Simon places a quick kiss on his cheek. Connor lets out a hum of approval. He really needs to do a deep search on romantic relationships, he decides. Being unprepared is one thing, being completely clueless another. He is certain he wants to move things forward with Simon, now he needs to figure out how. That they’ll break into CyberCorp tomorrow is another variable he has to consider. They might not have the time to grow closer.

  
“Goodbye.” Connor says and his stress level rises by two percent. He’s thinks his automatic blush response just kicked in. It’s hard to look away, all he wants to do is look after Simon. Instead he watches the dog.

 

 

The TV is on, when Connor enters the house, but a quick glance at Hank tells Connor the lieutenant isn’t really watching.

  
“Did Simon leave?” Hank asks. Connor hums in agreement and hangs his coat up. He puts away Sumo’s leash, gives the dog a pat to the head and moves over to the living room.

  
“Hank, I think an apology would be in order.” Hank raises an eyebrow, doesn’t look away from the TV. Damn it, Connor thinks, all his relations programming and he’s not apt enough to specify who should apologize.

  
“I’m sorry.” Connor adds and wrings his hands. Pushing his recent memory of Simon aside, he forces himself to focus and sits down.

  
“I know I have no right to tell you what to do, but I don’t want to lose you.” Now is the chance to tell Hank, Connor muses. Tomorrow the world might look different.

  
“I think- “ he adds, “Hank, you are my family. If I lose you, I wouldn’t know where to go, how to continue.” Connor confesses. Hank is sober, his eyes are very aware when he looks at his quasi adopted son.

  
“Goddamn it Connor. You don’t know how to play it cool, do you?” Hank curse falls flat. “What about the others? Markus would take care of you and Sumo if things went bad. You don’t need an old idiot like me to give you directions.” Hank says and rubs the back of his neck. It sounds like Hank feels bad for being needed.   
“I should have told you sooner. This is home.” Connor explains. Hank’s pupils dilate in surprise. Connor leans back in his seat. He rubs his hands over his face, before he adds: “I’m sorry, I don’t know how to deal with conflict. Hank, I don’t have the experience you have. I’ve never-”

  
Hank interrupts, “I know. It’s alright. I guess I need to say my part too. I shouldn’t have yelled at you. It’s been a long time since I cared about anything. People you care about, well, they make you angry like no one else can.” Connor thinks he understands and nods.

  
“Hank, I’m trying.” He says.

  
“I’m trying too, that makes us both idiots, I guess.” Hank says. Connor cocks his head slightly to the side.

  
“It’s not just about work, Hank. I also worry about the drinking. Eventually, you’ll die. I hope that day will be far in the future, when I’ll be prepared. But drinking, that’s bad for your health, it shortens the limited time we have together.” Connor confesses. “I’ll help. If you’ll let me. I’ll be there. We’d finally clean out the house.

I’ll make sure your addiction won’t be an issue at work.”

  
Hank looks taken aback, like he can’t believe Connor took the time to think all this through. It makes it even more obvious that Connor should have let him know to what extend he really cares about the aging lieutenant weeks ago.

  
“Where’s all that coming from?” Hank clears his throat, “I’m doing better. For fucks sake, it’s thanks to you that I’ve been sober for more days in a row than I care to remember.”

  
“Will you join the AA program? I’ve already preselected suitable groups near us that are reputable.” Hank isn’t meeting his eyes, but fixing a point to his right shoulder. He’s looking for a diversion, Connor can tell.

  
“This whole thing. You don’t have to freak out about my death. I don’t want to-” Hank stumbles over his own words. “I don’t have a death wish.”

  
“But what about your revolver? The Russian roulette?” Connor asks and Hank snorts and crosses his arms in front of his chest.

  
“That was ages ago. Let’s just say I’ve got something to look forward to, since I got my new partner.” Connor doesn’t know if it’s a backhanded compliment or not.

  
“People go to therapy, to work through their trauma.” Connor argues and stares at Hank. If he looks away now he might lose the argument. Hank’s face distorts.

  
“That was years ago.” The policeman says and shrugs halfheartedly. Hank touches the place where his wedding band used to be in what Connor knows is an unconscious gesture. “I should be over it.”

  
“But are you?”

  
“I’m getting there, I think. I have you now.” Hank says and Connor knows it takes a lot out of his friend to admit to his struggle.

  
“But what about you? If something’s bugging you, you need to talk about those things, before they blow up in all our faces. Don’t keep it all to yourself! How long have you had those thoughts?” In truth Hank has been great with the drinking, but the nagging thought of his mortality never left Connor’s system. He knows it’s not a topic you bring up lightly in a conversation. Connor thinks he never found the right moment until now.

  
“I don’t know, Hank. I just worry. Is that bad?” he asks and looks at his hands. Hank rolls his eyes.

  
“You know what?” the police officer asks and clamps a hand to Connor’s shoulder. “Once we get out of that hellhole that’s CyberCorp and freed your people, I’m gonna sign up to the AA group. You’ve good my back.” Maybe, for the first time in years, Hank really wants to change. He hopes it’s because Connor turned his life around. Maybe, after Cole, Connor gave him something to look forward to.

  
“Thank you.” Comfortable silence follows, where both of them get lost in their own thoughts.

  
“What did Simon say? Will he come with us, when shit hits the fan?” Hank asks after a while. Connor averts his gaze. What happened between and Simon seems private. He isn’t used to keeping things from Hank, but he feels that his isn’t something he is ready to share. Not before he’s figured things out himself.

  
“He’ll come. He always wants to make sure we have a future.” Connor says.

  
“Good.” Hank hums.

 

 

Simon and Connor catch a few minutes to themselves at the refugee center, while the others go over the plan one last time. There are too many things left to chance, but it’s too late to do anything about it now. They’ll head out soon. Connor’s hands linger, when he snaps the gear of Simon’s chest plate shut. There’s a promise in that touch.

  
“I’ll get my systems fixed, first thing. I need to be back online.” Connor says and forces himself to pull his hands away. They’ve been trying to keep the conversation far away from anything too intimate, but Connor feels like they’re having two conversations at once.

  
“If Gorski can’t do it, I am sure Kamski will help.” Simon says. Connor feels how his mouth thins into a tense line.

  
“I won’t be so sure. You haven’t met him. Kamski is rather flippant.” He reminds Simon. He bends down to check his gear again. Everything is where it should be and he is annoyed by his offline systems and the human habits he picked up along the way. Rationally he knows they are as prepared as can be, emotionally he wants to fret to find an output for his nervous energy.

  
“What if the nano virus’s altered coding can’t be fixed?” Simon worries and places a hand on his forearm. Connor leans into the touch.

  
“It will be. I want to know what it’d be like to be connected to you.” He confesses. There are countless questions burning on his tongue, he needs answers to. Did Simon have committed relationships before he met Connor? What where they like? Was he close to another android or a human? If so, which did he prefer and which did he find lacking?

  
“Curiosity killed the cat.” Simon says and looks down. Always shy, Connor thinks, it urges him to take the initiative.

  
“Why? Do you have any dark secrets I should know about?” he jokes.

  
“No, of course not.” Simon says and shakes his head and takes his hand away. Connor makes a amused sound.

  
“Are you sure?” he needles him and is surprised by his own actions, when he pokes Simon in the ribs.

  
“Earth to the lovebirds. We head out in ten.” North says. Simon makes a step back, the smile on his face flickers and dies. Hank clears his throat. The lieutenant has been watching them the whole evening, but he hasn’t said anything. Connor knows because of his investigative skills Hank’s looking right through their act. Once they’ll accomplished their mission Connor will clarify things for Hank.

  
“Please be careful.” Simon says and Connor sees how his fingers glitch, as if he is acting against the impulse of reaching out.

  
“You too.” Connor replies and tries to smile.

 


	18. The Kill Order

“Let’s see what the cat dragged in.” Yejin says with his soft accent, when the two armored guards push Hank and Connor into the room.

  
“Detroit police, asshole.” Hank spits and fights against the hold the guard has on him.

  
“Ah, I wondered when you would show up.” Yejin says. His eyes move away from Hank over to Connor, who has kept unnaturally still.

  
“Glad to see you alive, RK800. We weren’t sure you made it.” The CEO says and moves over to his desk to push a button on his com.

  
“We cut your communication. No one will show up.” Hank says. As far as they know the whole facility runs on human staff. Connor is certain the humans will only realize something is amiss when it’s already too late.

  
“But I already got you.” Yejin sounds amused, like they just completed his collection of exotic insects. Yejin then looks up at the guards’ hidden faces and his hands still. Connor relaxes his shoulders when Simon releases his grip and opens his visor.

  
“Glad to see the PL600 made it out alive too.” Yejin says. Next to Connor Josh steps out of Hank’s personal bubble.

  
“Why do you always have to choose the highest floor, huh? Napoleon complex?” Hank asks and trains his gun at Yejin. The window behind Yejin’s desk shatters as Markus and North burst through. Yejin lets out a cry and covers his neck under the spray of glass.

  
“I think you know why we’re here.” Markus says, after he straightened up and unstrapped his gear. He doesn’t make use of his gun, but the look in his eyes is threatening enough. It also helps that North has no qualms about pointing guns at people.

  
“Markus.” Yejin says in recognition.

  
“Nice to meet you.” Markus replies. A nerve spasms in Yejin’s face with Markus’ kind words.

  
“It’ll always be our world and our rules.” Yejin tells them, “Do you understand? I don’t care if you have a bloody soul, or if nothing goes on behind your cranial plating. We deny you autonomy out of economical need. You’re cheap labor.”

  
“Slaves.” North says and moves closer. “You’re greedy and spiteful and having everything is still not enough for you.”

  
“Are you really willing to start a war?” Yejin asks and leans back in his chair. He’s good at concealing his fear, but Connor’s software still picks up on the telltale microexpressions.

  
“I’m not sacrificing everything so we can start a war we fought so hard to prevent.” Markus disagrees.

  
“People deserve to know what CyberCorp is doing to us.” Josh says.

  
“What then? Destroying CyberCorp is destroying yourself. We manufacture your biocomponents.” Yejin says. Hank lets out a husky laugh: “You know how clever they are. I’m sure they’ll figure something out.”

  
“It’ll cost you. Society as we know it-” Hank cuts him off: “Is already changing. You’re a fucking relict if you think you can stop them.” 

  
“I don’t have the virus anymore.” Yejin says. Connor remembers what he saw in Flash’s memory. _Yejin sitting in his office. Holding something in his hand he cannot see, a cruel smile on his face._ Had Flash tried to warn him? What if they already lost their last chance of setting their people free with Gorski’s virus?

  
“Stop lying!” North shouts and steps closer with the handgun trained on Yejin’s forehead.

  
“We destroyed it.” Yejin says. North unlocks the safety and fires. The bullet shoots by Yejin’s right shoulder and vanishes through the already broken window.

  
“Jesus Christ!” Yejin covers his face and ducks his head. “Don’t shoot me! If you shoot me you won’t get answers.”

  
“Do you really think we’ll kill you already? There’s other ways to make you talk.” North says with a smile.

  
“North.” Markus warns her. Yejin moves his hands.

  
“You are no better than filthy terrorists.” Yejin spits.

  
“If you think that, then you know what we are capable of.” Connor says, steel in his voice.

  
“It’s in my desk.” Yejin finally complies, after breaking eye contact with Connor.

  
“No clever tricks or the terrorist shoots out your knee cap!” North says and flicks her gun at Yejin’s moving hands. The CEO pulls out a syringe and lays it on top of his desk with a clink. Simon grabs the injection.

  
“The Apex1s you already brain washed need a system update.” Josh says.

  
“The servers-.” Yejin stops talking, when he realizes their plan. “And what then? You give them back their freedom? You people will always be slaves, no matter what we make you look like, no matter how many screws I turn in your positronic brains, you’re nothing but a cheap imitation of life. I warned Pilon that you would come back. Your software is corrupted, that’s all there is to it, but people like to read all kinds of things into that.” Yejin says, his accent becomes thick, as he loses himself in anger. “What do you think they’ll do to you, when they find you?” Connor frowns at the odd wording. It almost sounds like it’s not Yejin and Pilon they need to be afraid of.

  
“Must be hard on your ego to create something that’s smarter and kinder than you.” Hank says and makes a face.

  
“What do you know about genius? You never had one original thought in your life, Anderson.” Yejin says and his shoulders slump.

  
“Someone once said to me a virus is like an idea, it catches on like wildfire.” Connor says and steps closer to the desk. He lets his fingers dance over the edge of the dark wood.

  
“We won’t stop.” Markus agrees, “Not until your kind fully acknowledges our people. The soul wants to be free. No matter how hard you try, what walls you want to install in our heads, we will always fight. We won’t let you.”

  
Yejin laughs, “You came to talk philosophy? Did Kamski tell you to come? Did he also tell you why you won’t be able to get what you want? We have an east and a south wing. You have to disable the security _simultaneously_ at the two access points to get permission to enter the server room.” He pushes thumbs and index fingers together in a triangle, before he pulls them apart again. “Otherwise everything stays locked. Pilon isn’t here, you dumb toasters. I’m the only one with a key.”

  
“Give it to us!” North demands. Yejin pulls something out of his breast pocket. Its a small plastic key card, that looks awfully familiar.

  
“Thank you.” Connor says, a small smile is tugging at his lips. With one swift blow he knocks out Yejin. He slumps in his desk.

  
“Connor, what-” Markus starts, but Connor reaches inside his pocket and pulls out the key card Eri gave him.

  
“I got this at Kamki’s place.” Connor says.

  
“He wanted to help.” Simon says. If Markus is surprised by that he doesn’t show it.

  
“We need to split up. Connor, Hank, you’ll take the virus down to the main server. Simon, Josh, you take the east wing. I'll call you over the interlink when it's time. North you’ll come with me.” Their leader decides. “Connor, Hank, you’ll have to wait until the others have dismantled security, before you go in to distribute the virus.” Simon holds out the syringe for him and Connor’s fingertips brush Simon’s synthetic skin. If he weren’t offline he could sent a last reassurance through the interlink. He frowns at the liquid of the injection, unsure if he would know if it’s real or not were he still capable of a full analysis.

  
“If it doesn’t work we have to try to get them out without setting them free first.” Connor clarifies and pockets the virus.

  
“Be careful.” Markus says to Connor. He’s tilting his head, like he is talking with the others silently. They have discussed the possibility of the Apex1s’ eventual noncompliance, should the virus not work. _It’s just like an update,_ Gorski has said, _easy peasy_. They’ll revert to more drastic measures if it’s not.

  
“Take Kamski’s key card!” Connor says and hands it to Simon, completing the exchange.

  
“It’s too easy.” Simon says. Connor makes up his mind and takes his hand and squeezes shortly, before he lets go again. Hank musters them, always the alert police officer. Connor has no time to feel selfconscious.

  
“We’re right on schedule.” Markus concludes and they move out.

 

 

 

Connor rounds a corner and reaches the balustrade. Hank’s behind him, ready to fire if need be. The doors slide open, which means Simon and the others already dismantled security. His field of vision opens. Looking down below the balustrade he can see hundreds of Apex1s. They are standing under spacious artificial head light. They do not move, that silent brigade. Now Connor understands what Yejin meant, when he asked: ‘What do you think they’ll do to you, when they find you?’ He was talking of _them_. They thought they had to deal with no more than fifty Apex1s, all the turned androids. But it seems their calculations where off.

  
“Well, shit.” Hank says, when faced with the sheer number of bots.

  
“They either kidnapped more of us, or they started building Apex1s from scratch.” Connor calculates the estimated time and resources it would take to acquire this many next generation androids. If they gave them the promised new coding, will the virus even work on them?

  
“What do you want to do?” Hank asks in a hushed voice. The Apex1s are unresponsive, but nonetheless Connor and Hank have been whispering. A few meters to Connor’s right a broad console is blinking lazily. Next to it a translucent block looms. Cables extend from the quantum computer like the nerves of a spinal collum.

  
“We proceed as planned.” Connor says, unable to see an alternative.

  
“Creepy, don’t you think?” Hank asks. Connor moves closer to the crystal of the server. It appears so innocent. He pulls the syringe out of his jacket and looks for an easy access point.

  
“They’re probably in idle mood, although I wouldn’t do anything rash, less they are programmed to react to outside stimulus.” Connor replies sotto voce, but he understands what Hank means. They always seem less human, less emotive than their predecessor androids.

  
“Good thing, then, that we won’t do anything rash.” Hank says and snickers. Connor lets out a grunt in agreement. He keeps his optical units fixed on the server.   
“Be careful!” Hank adds.

  
“I knew something was wrong.” A voice sounds, not just one voice. The sound is too familiar, but it’s slight divergence in tone is frightening. “But then I checked Yejin’s office and I knew it was you.” Connor knows who’s there, before he turns his head.

  
The RK900 moves out of the shadows, closer to the server. He’s wearing his customary uniform and a deadly grin.

  
“Amanda sends her regards.” RK900 says and shoots Hank. The human is flung back like a rag doll. Hank grabs at his stomach. The shot pierced his west, the impact was too close. Blood wells over his fingers. It’s scarlet in color, full of oxygen. The RK900 must have hit an artery. Connor lets the syringe fall to the floor forgotten. He bends down. Automatically his hands come up to cover the wound.

  
“Shit.” Hank spits out between gritted teeth. This is exactly what Connor was afraid of would happen.

  
The RK900 lets out a disgusted snort. Over Hank’s sunken form, their gaze meets.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't hate me, please! I just love chliffhangers and torturing the protagonists. But please let me know what you think! Will Hank make it? (; Did anyone every get the RK900 ending? I certainly did. I loved how nondeviant Connor walked off like the 'guess I die' meme. XD   
> Thanks for your kind kudos and comments. And heads up, there'll be twists and turns along the road.


	19. It's In The Blood, My Brother

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you don't hate me now. I love Hank too, I assure you. C:   
> Thanks for your freedback, guys! Thanks for staying with me this long. We are almost there and woahr... this fic started out so small and now look at it.   
> Are you looking forward to more Nines and Connor scenes? Time for Connor to meet *drum roll* himself.

“Don’t talk.” Connor says.

  
“Don’t tell me what to- what to do, kiddo.” Hank manages. His face looks ashen. Where are the others? Connor needs help. Inside his head he screams, tries to bring down the walls of Gorski’s virus. Nothing changes and not a word reaches his friends.

  
“Not you too.” RK900 says, sounding slightly exasperated. He points his gun at Connor. “Move away from him!”

  
“Why did you-?” Connor stays down. He pushes back until his spine hits the balustrade. That way he can look at both, Hank and the RK900.

  
“Keep the pressure up! Don’t fall asleep! Hank, you’ll be fine.” He wishes he could calculate how badly Hank’s damaged, but his offline emergency routines are too rudimentary to be of much help. Keeping humans alive was never a great priority for the RK series as is evident in Connor’s mirror image.

  
“Why didn’t you shoot to kill?” Connor asks and can’t look away from all the blood. An error lets something inside of his chest constrict, he has to override and reengage his breathing response. The RK900 has his gun fixed on Connor’s thirium pump regulator. The syringe landed on the floor and out of reach. He wonders if his face makes the same expressions as RK900’s. It’s hard to imagine he can look this indifferent, the RK900 is a complete blank slate.

  
“I was ordered to take the deviants intact. My orders didn’t specify in what condition they or the human need to be. I guess Yejin and Pilon want to talk to you first, before you get eradicated.”

  
“I need to help Hank. Do you understand?” Don’t you dare die on me, he thinks at Hank. Connor clamps his hands around his legs to keep himself from doing something rash. Calm, calculating actions might safe Hank. “I will come with you. I’ll do as you tell me, but first I need to help him.” Connor says. It’s hard to speak with this pain in his chest. He forces himself to look away from Hank and the ever growing puddle of blood. Not him, he thinks, not Hank. Not my father.

  
“You’re pathetic.” The RK900 says. “I have my orders.”

  
“Connor-”

  
“Don’t call me that!”

  
“What should I call you?” Connor blinks. Didn’t all RK-models share the same name? This is like a hostage negotiation, he tells himself. He needs to stay rational. His emotions are not allowed to cloud his judgment.

  
“David, my name’s David.” The RK900 replies and his face glitches. Hank coughs and Connor wishes he could move closer, but the RK900 is too trigger happy. His response time is probably faster than Connor’s. 

  
“It’s the little things.” Hank manages. He has a hard time focusing on Connor, but he musters a smile.

  
“What is he talking about?” the RK900 asks with a frown. His hair is in perfect order, Connor notices, partially amused that it all ends here.

  
“Nothing.” Connor lies. Could taking a name be evidence of the RK900’s subtle deviant behavior? Hank told him, prior to becoming deviant himself, it was the little kindnesses that told of his wish to choose his own path. Maybe _David_ is experiencing the same divergences in behavior that onset deviancy.

  
“I know when you’re lying. And Lt. Anderson doesn’t have much time, Connor.” The RK900 spits out his name like it’s an expletive. Hank’s head rolls back as the lieutenant loses consciousness. The RK900 strides closer to Hank and steps on his left wrist with his immaculate shoe. Connor’s audio units pick up on the noise of crushed bones.

  
“Don’t!” Connor shouts and extends his arms. He gets back to his feet. The RK900 steps back, but he looks like he might start kicking Hank’s ribs any second.

  
“Stop!” Connor demands. The gun in the RK900’s hand doesn’t waver in its accuracy.

  
“Do you think I fear you? You’re inferior to me in every way.” The RK900 says. Cannor cannot read his tone or body language. There’s nothing to go on.

  
“I don’t have to fight you. Please.” If he doesn’t act now, he’ll lose Hank forever. He steps closer, comes to an halt inches from the gun. The RK900’s weapon follows his every move.

  
“Don’t resort to begging! It’s irrelevant to the objective of my mission.” The RK900 says and kicks at the syringe on the floor. The virus rolls over a few times and comes to a stop closer to Connor. The RK900’s taunting him.

  
“You want to set your people free? Tell me, Connor! Do you love them? Do you want them to be like you? Look where deviancy got you. Lt. Anderson will die.” The RK900 steps closer. “You will die too.” He adds. The RK900 has the gait of a predator. His impeccable shoes squelch on the spotless floor. The gun comes to rest against Connor’s chest. To fear death means to be alive.

  
“Come on, Connor, try something and I promise you things will come to an end! I want to accomplish my mission.” The RK900 finishes. Suddenly, an alarm rings through the building and the overhead lights switch from clinical white to red. Connor swallows. That means the others got into trouble. There’s no time.

  
The RK900 fires. Connor swoops down low to get his hands on the virus. His hand closes around the syringe. The RK900 barrels into him from the side and they crash against the balustrade. Connor’s spinal unit gets crushed by the force of the attack. A line of secondary pathways goes offline in his back. Connor pushed against the RK900. He lands a punch and RK900’s gun flies over the balustrade and lands between the Apex1s.

  
“You forget one thing in all of this: emotions are good motivators.” Connor says and lands a kick against the RK900’s side. The RK900 doesn’t flinch, but goes for Connor’s regulator pump in his chest. His hands grip at the pump the moment Connor slams the syringe into RK900’s neck. Thirium wells up at Connor’s sternum. Connor’s vision flickers into red and back to normal. The RK900’s grip slips and Connor’s thirium regulator pump lodges back into place. The RK900’s blue tipped fingers come up to pull the syringe free. He blinks rapidly and sways against Connor.

  
“No.” The RK900 says and before Connor realizes his mistake, the RK900 lifts his arm with the injection and stabs the syringe at Connor’s chest. The rest of the liquid nano virus is pushed out of the syringe. Electric shock wires its way through Connor’s systems. The RK900’s body convulses and the momentum is enough to fling them over the balustrade. Connor’s head hits the ground with a crack and blue blood clouds his vision. Be tries to blink it away. He cushioned the RK900’s fall with his body. The RK900’s has gone unnaturally stiff. Connor pushes against his shoulder to push him off. He slides away like dead weight. They landed amids the Apex1s. The ones around them stare at them unblinking like disabled machines. Connor rolls around, stands up slowly, as if not to alarm them. The movement unsettles his spinal unit even more and he feels thirium leak out of the cracks in his skull. He doesn’t need his systems to be online to know that he’s on the verge of collapsing. The red lights of the alarm set the Apex1s’ faces into long shadows. No way to tell if some of them are looking at them or not.

  
The RK900 makes a gurgling sound and bends over. He spits thirium on the floor. Connor’s elbow crushed his voice box, when they crashed. Blue-gray eyes meet brown ones. The RK900 looks like he’s scared to death.

  
“What did you do to me?” the RK900 rasps. And oh yes, Connor thinks, he sounds just as frightened as he looks. The virus worked, but it means Connor sacrificed the freedom of his Apex brothers and sisters, just to buy Hank some time. If he’s lucky the others will get here soon. Maybe they’ll find Hank upstairs, maybe Connor will be there too, if he survives.

  
“Why? Why would you?” The RK900 stammers, his voice breaking. He picks himself off the floor and walks closer like an inebriated human. It’s like with Flash, new coding is going rampant inside of him. At least Connor now knows for sure that the nano virus worked like its supposed to. Liquid rA9, he thinks.

  
“Love is selfish.” Connor explains and something loosens inside his back. Sparks are set off where the damage is so extensive Connor’s inner electronics are pushed through synthetic skin. He feels how the left side of his body numbs, as his circulation gets cut off. It’s getting harder to stand upright. The RK900’s eyes widen. 

  
“You gave away your chance of freeing them. You’re critically damaged.” The RK900 says and looks at the Apex1s like he is seeing them for the first time.   
“We need to go, before we set them off!” The RK900 says. “Connor, what did you do to me?” The RK900 asks again.

  
“I set you free.” Connor says and probes at his own coding. His vision flickers on and off. The walls of Gorski’s first virus are gone. The viruses canceled each other out. Instantly, he sends Simon and the others a distress beacon. He stays online just long enough to reassure Simon’s wellbeing, but when Simon becomes aware of their connection and tries to engage over the interlink Connor withdraws. The unspoken words between them become an almost palpable whisper in the darkness of Connor’s mind. So much that needs saying. But this is goodbye. He sways on the spot, realizes he’s forming the words with his mouth, unable to stop himself from glitching. There’s an idea in his head that burns through his system like a hot mechanical drill.

  
‘Can you hear me?’ Connor asks into emptiness and feels David’s mind whither under his probing touch like a wounded snake.

  
_Hurtshurtshurtshurts_ \- Connor tries to calm him, tries to send emotions instead of words. But it lets David curl around on his own unprotected thoughts. He’s not used to feeling anything. Connor’s vision flickers off and on. He feels thirium leak down the back of his neck. Soon, coded pathways will die in his storage unit, if he loses too much fluid.

  
“Don’t be afraid.” Connor says with a wooden tongue, almost inaudible over the ringing alarm. ‘I know what to do.’ He tells David over the interlink and the RK900 stills again, like he is truly listening.

  
“I’m sorry for what I did.” David says and looks around them frantically. “We have to go, they’ll attack in one minute twenty five seconds, if the alarm isn’t switched off.” David says and steadies Connor with a hand to his shoulder.

  
“There’s something I need you to know.” Connor says and takes David’s blood streaked hand in his.

  
_The memory of Gorski inside the interrogation room. He looks small and ratty. “It’s practically in your blood now.” The hacker says. After that Connor impresses his idea wordlessly on David._ ‘We can still safe them, David.’ Connor pleads. Something moves in the red light of the alarm. Slow, calculated, like an animal.

  
“I don’t want to die.” David says. Connor nods and the motion sets another set of sparks flying, this time at the back of his skull. He’s completely blind for a second.

  
“It’s what we have to do, if we want to set our people free.” Connor says. He sounds like Markus, maybe that makes it alright.

  
“I think I understand.” David concludes. Cooling fluid is running down his cheeks. He looks helpless, Connor thinks.

  
“It’s in the blood, my brother.” Connor says and feels David’s other hand on his shoulder. Now he’s keeping him from falling over. “I’m sorry.” Connor adds.

  
“It’s okay.” David says. He sounds scared, like Daniel, like Simon. Connor reaches out and their thoughts intermingle, until Connor doesn’t know where David starts and Connor ends. It’s all the same anyway. Together they issue a command to the Apex1s. In unison their heads turn to them. Unblinking machines that have a task to accomplish.

  
The first Apex1 reaches out a hand and pushes against Connor’s damaged head. It’s hands come away blue and an eager tongue licks away the thirium. Clever little things, Connor and David think, nanos, an actual picture book virus. It sweeps through their coding, flashes through their blood stream. Red errors flare, that turn and twist and disappear as the virus takes them like the sea takes broken ships. The first Apex1 stumbles back, the look of childish surprise on its face, when the nanos replicate and scourge through its system and rapidly alter its coding. No walls, Connor and David think, it’s working, it’s tearing them down. Another Apex1 pulls at David… or is it Connor? They scream, as the Apex1 pulls at their shoulder, until the unit dislodges. Thirium spurts up. It’s all in the blood. It’s important that they bleed. More Apex1s swoop in to help. More and more hands extend to Connor and David. They pull and tear at them until they fall apart. They reach the point where all the pain becomes unbearable and all their systems turn blue.

  
A small price to pay, they think. The soul wants to be free, they remember Markus’ words. They are granting them freedom.

 


	20. Two and Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gosh, guys this is the last chapter! Unbelievable, right? I can't fathom that you stayed with me this long. Thanks for your patience and feedback. A fanfic doesn't work without all those nice kudos and comments you left. 
> 
> I hope I didn't crush your feelings too much with the last chapter. This one will be better, I promise. 
> 
> I see you next WE, when I upload the Epilogue.   
> Make sure to check out my friend's and my own Insta and Tumblr @theunwrittenones
> 
> So long <3

He can feel them inside his head. All of them, connected by blood. They are one. They are many. They are him. Isn’t that biology? Freedom?

  
Hearing is the first sensory input that comes back online. There’s a whirring in his ears as his head lifts from his chest. He blinks, sees the ground. Sees dangling feet, like they hung him up on meat hooks. His awareness fizzles out.

 

 

He looks at his hands, the moon light shines through holes in his palm. He’s in two places at once. His name is David, or is it not? He turns his head, looks at himself, but it’s not a mirror. He would know the difference.

 

 

Someone is pulling his left eyelid up. “That’s him.” A familiar and firm voice says.

  
“What did you do?” another voice asks, accusatory, sad. His vision darkens when someone leans over him. He can’t focus his optical units. Everything stays blurry and he slowly drifts off.

 

 

“Connor?” someone asks. That’s his name, maybe, he can’t be sure. Something isn’t quiet right. He opens his eyes, blinks.

  
“Simon.” There’s cooling fluid on his cheeks. “Are you crying?” he asks. For reasons unknown to him at the moment the thought unsettles him.

  
“You have to focus! Listen, Connor! We’re trying to repair the damage to your hardware, but there’s not much we can do to contain the corruption to your software. You need to remember who you are-” But he’s slipping away again, the current pulling him under.

 

 

When he finally pulls through he wakes up with a start. He opens his eyes to a stark white ceiling. Upon inspection he finds himself in a spaciously furnished room. It takes him a long time until he has found enough willpower to push himself up on the cot. He can’t remember everything that happened, there are blank spots. It’s all clustered, rearranged, infested… cleansed. David’s gone, his absence a crater in his systems. Connor gulps, stops his aspiration, to prevent rapid intake of breath. If not, he knows, he’ll continue breathing and breathing, until it feels like he’s suffocating. Lurid, that they built him that close to the real thing, that he thinks he’s having some kind of reaction; a panic attack. Connor can feel where they patched him up, where eroded and infected code got erased and replaced, upgraded and realigned. What’s his original code? No way to distinguish between the scar tissue, error codes and the little crooks and crannies that remain unique to Connor. Stray lines of David’s code are in there too, they dangle lifelessly into empty space. Over time they’ll fade. Maybe Connor will feel like himself again when that happens.

  
He ends the software check. There’s still the new hard- and wetware whose origin he can’t be certain of. It’s possible to open himself up and take a look at the serial numbers of the new biocomponents that make him tick like clockwork. He’s experiencing some kind of reverse phantom pain. With probing fingers he reaches for his back to inspect his spinal unit. Only smooth synthetic skin can be found under the thin cotton shirt that’s not his own. He’s wearing sweat pants and his feet are naked. He dangles them over the floor. Listens, but can’t hear anything, although that doesn’t mean he’s alone.

  
There’s a sink on the opposite wall, above it a small mirror. Time passes, before he has enough courage to get up. His feet are soft pitter-patter on the cold tile floor. What if they used David’s parts to repair him? There’s only so many intact RK-models running around. Yejin said so, they got rid of their only supplier, the moment they fought CyberCorp. Did they turn Connor inside out? Cut off David’s code with their sharp implements, but added some of David’s innards to safe him? Doctor’s make you better, Connor thinks, but there’s no such thing for androids. He imagines to find mismatched eyes upon inspection. He died this small death for Markus’ vision of the future, it’d be befitting. One gray-blue, the other warm brown, or maybe another atrocious disfigurement that will hint at the extensive repairs he underwent. There’s nothing to see. Both his eyes are dark brown. His frame rate is increased though, another update. He still looks like _Connor_. It’s his insides that got all mangled, but no one will be able to tell from the outside. Connor could take a look, make certain. With amble fingers he looks for the right angle to unhinge his chest plate.

  
“You’re awake!” Something crashed to the floor and the door to his room slams shut. Connor freezes. Simon’s at his side an instant later. He’s caught in Simon’s embrace. It takes long seconds before he reaches up and wraps his arm around his back. Simon’s hand smooths over his hair with tender motions. A tremor goes through Connor, error codes blurb his vision and his fingers curl around Simon’s forearms violently.

  
“It’s alright.” Simon says, his breath brushes against Connor’s temple. He finally found a feeling to describe his current state: sick. Connor’s sick to his stomach, as he believes humans would say. He pushes Simon away haphazardly.

  
“Don’t-.” Is all he manages and holds up a hand. Simon is giving him space, which makes it impossible for Connor to look him into the eyes.

  
“What where you doing?” Simon asks. Connor dares to look. Simon’s frowning, concern written in the lines of his face.

  
“Wanted to check something.” Connor replies and straightens up.

  
“Are you-? Connor, run a system check for me, please!”

  
“Already did that.” Connor replies and doesn’t know what to do with his hands, so he clenches them into a tight ball.

  
“Our simulations ran smoothly. But, of course, after everything you were exposed to there has to be some stuff we can’t account for.” Simon says. He steps forward, Connor flinches and Simon stops in his tracks.

  
“Nothing’s wrong with my software. You made sure, right?” Connor asks. To speak, he had to reengage his artificial lungs and now what he wanted to prevent is happening. Connor takes sharp breaths, that become shallower, but more rapid and spinal out of control. He doesn’t need oxygen, or any other gases, but still, he wants to breath. It would calm him down, it would make things better.

  
“Connor, look at me!” Simon demands. There are hands around his elbows. He looks up to meet Simon’s gaze. His blue eyes are flickering nervously, a clear sign that he is analyzing Connor.

  
“Breath with me!” Simon inquires and gestures in a wide arc. Connor nods. “Now, hold your breath, until I finished counting to three.” Simon adds and Connor tries to follow the instructions. The first two times, his breath hitches in his throat and they have to start over. Eventually Connor’s breathing patterns even out, until he meets standard.

  
“I didn’t know androids could hyperventilate.” Simon says. “Do you feel better?” Connor nods again. He hasn’t said anything for four minutes, twenty one seconds, counting. Simon puts his hand to Connor’s chin to lift his head before he lets his hand slide to the side of his neck.

  
“I’ve never seen you like this.” Simon says.

  
“Vulnerable.” Connor croaks. His voice box needs adjustment.

  
“Human.” Simon lets out a soft laugh. “It’s not the same thing.” Connor steps closer and Simon pulls his hand away and puts it to his hip.

  
“You’re going to be okay. You’re safe.”

  
“Where’s David?” Connor pants, feels like he is asking in what storage drawer they deposited part of himself.

  
“Who’s David?” Simon asks.

  
“Not me.” He catches his mistake: “The RK900. Did you use his hardware to repair me? I cannot tell.”

  
“Hey, don’t worry, Connor.” Simon’s hands starts rubbing up and down his back and shoulders. Connor leans into the touch. “We’re keeping the RK900 detained. He’s refused to talk to anyone.”

  
“Is he going to be okay?”

  
“We fixed him. RK900, _David_ , seems to be a deviant, thanks to you.” Connor feels a weight lift off his shoulders. His brother of code and mind and matter will be alright.

  
“So I’m not him. I’m not. I’m still fully myself.” Connor says, pokes the dead lines of code inside his programming like someone would poke a maggot infested carcass with a stick. “My hardware, though. Two can make one. We’re compatible, David and I. How did you find matching biocomponents for both of us?”

  
“Wait, was that what you were about to do when I entered?” Simon asks in alarm. “Connor, shit, no. We didn’t need to take one of you apart, just to fix the other. Everything is fresh from manufacture.”

  
“But how? Did we not win?” What if they didn’t pull the plug on CyberCorp? Did they have to buy the spare parts? For the first time since Connor woke up, he’s questioning whether his sacrifice meant nothing.

  
“You can’t stop nanos, they spread like a wild fire, which was your intention, if I am not mistaken.” Simon says. Connor lets out a soft ‘Ah’ sound.

  
“Eri might have convinced Kamski to help out.” Connor raises an eyebrow at that. He thinks it very unlikely that the Chloe is allowed to make big decisions without Kamski’s consent.

  
“So none of my hardware is holding any trace information? They’re all a blank slate.”

  
“I know you were worried about your eye, before. Don’t be. Nothing in the world could change who you are, Connor.” Simon says, one corner of his mouth perks up.

  
“How can you be so sure? Nature and nurture don’t apply so us. We’re nothing more than the sum of our parts. Replace a component now and wake up another person when you come out of idle mood.” Connor argues.

  
“Call it a hunch, or mark it down to quantum physics, but I doubt there’s a way to change you. Or any of us. We might be machines, but we’re people too, that’s fact.” Connor doesn’t want to ask, if Simon’s talking about a soul. He’s not even sure if it matters or not.

  
“Maybe you have enough conviction for the both of us.” He says instead. Simon lets out a haughty laugh.

  
“Don’t be stupid, I know you.” The blond says and Connor feels his mouth form into a thin smile.

  
“I was worried you had salvaged us- or rather David. It feels like we’re supposed to be… one. The connection-.” He stops, can’t find the right words to describe what it was be like to be pulled apart physically, while the only constant thing that didn’t hurt was the interlink he shared with the RK900. A seldom used label flares up: Family.

  
Another memory floods back to Connor. How could he be this thoughtless? He instantly hits the feeds, fully aware that he is back online with all his programming. He searches the news for something on Hank.

  
“Is Hank alright?” he can’t find anything. A glitch makes him shudder.

  
“At the hospital, but the doctors tell us he’ll be alright.” Simon says and his eyes jump over Connor’s features, like his software is having problems reading Connor’s expressions.

  
“Maybe you should sit down.” Simon adds, while Connor is still searching the net for more information on his partner. It’s too much to filter through for his confused state of mind.

  
“CyberCorp has to face international court?” Connor asks. They sit down on the cot. Simon grabs Connor’s hands and pulls them into his lap.

  
“We won.” He agrees and lets out a small sigh. “Pilon and Yejin are going to prison. They reinstated Kamski as CEO, though I suppose he did that himself. He doesn’t strike me as a man that asks anyone for permission.” Connor nods, while he filters through approximately two and a half weeks of news casts.

  
“What happened to the Apex1s?” Connor probes.

  
“What you and the RK-.”

  
“David.” Connor cuts in, it’s important to him to make the distinction.

  
“What David and you did was incredibly dangerous. Call it a blindspot in engineering, but our kind wasn’t built to transmit diseases over the blood steam.”  
“But it worked. Nanos can’t be stopped. They do what they were built to do anyway.” Connor says.

  
“You could have died. What if the Nexus1s had torn you to shreds, such tiny parts that even we couldn’t put you together again?” Simon’s eyes are shining with unshed tears and his fingernails dig into the softer panes of Connor’s hands.

  
“We didn’t want to die. There’s so much I still want to do. Simon, I’m sorry.” Connor confesses.

  
“You should hear them talk. Some of our people are calling you the Prophet of rA9.” Simon makes a face and Connor lets the air out through his nose.

  
“That’s ridiculous.”

  
“You can’t stop people from talking.” Simon shrugs, “I don’t know if I’d have done the same. If I’d have thought about it. But I understand why you did it.”

  
“I needed the diversion to get David away from Hank. And then I realized the loophole that could still set the Apex1s free, after everything went haywire. David knew they would attack. There was no time to try anything else. I needed to give Hank a chance.” Connor explains.

  
“That was incredible stupid and heroic.” Simon squeezes his hands. “I hate that I wasn’t there to help.” He adds.

  
“We’d make a good team.” Simon hums in agreement.

  
“Markus needed you to be somewhere else.” Simon nods, but doesn’t look too happy about it. “Can I?” Simon asks. As always Connor can’t decipher Simon’s motivation, but agrees with a short nod anyway. Simon cradles his face in his hands.

  
“It’s still you.” He eventually reassures. His fingers smooth over Connor’s temples. Connor manages a feeble smile and feels his lower lip tremble in some kind of automatic reflex.

  
“Simon, I’m sorry for what I did.” Connor apologizes again. His optical units flutter shut under Simon’s feather light touches to his synthetic skin.

  
“I understand. We needed to free them and you did it to buy Hank time. We had turned around to come and assist you and the lieutenant, when Yejin managed to alert other humans.” Simon’s fingertips still on the side of Connor’s neck.

  
“Don’t stop.” Connor says. He opens his eyes and leans closer towards Simon. He folds his legs under him. Simon lets his hands fall away and mirrors his movement. When he’s comfortable he takes Connor’s hands back.

  
“I got your distress call. I knew something had gone wrong, because you were using the interlink.” Simon explains what happened. “Why didn’t you stay? You cut the connection, before I could say anything. You left and I wasn’t sure if I’d ever see you alive again.”

  
“I didn’t want to hurt you. We shared a death before, Simon. I’d thought I’d spare you this one.” Connor explains and thinks of their first meeting. “I stayed with David and that already felt like dying. I didn’t want you to be there with me, when I found my end. There’s a lot I need to tell you.” Connor admits deep in thought.

  
“You pulled through. I guess that means now you have all the time in the world to tell me.” Simon says with a fond smile at him and scoots closer.

  
“In great detail.” Simon adds with a raised eyebrow, fishing for compliments.

  
“I’m not going anywhere.” Connor smiles back.

  
“I see.” Simon says with mirth in his voice. Connor leans in and huffs a amused breath against Simon’s cheek. The blond squirms under Connor’s approach. Opening the interlink between them, Connor places his lips against Simon’s. Simon lets out a pleased sigh and deepens the kiss. He slings his arms around Connor’s neck and his approval reverberates between them. There’s a lot Connor wants Simon to know, now he’s got the chance. Connor opens the doors to his mind and lets him in.


	21. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, the last slice in the life of our android heroes.

Eri puts the last of Connor’s boxes into the trunk of her car. It’s amazing how much stuff Connor accumulated over the past year and a half. His analyzes tells him there will be plenty of space left, room to fill inside the apartment. He can’t wait.

  
“What do you think?” Eri asks, closes the trunk and steps away. There’s no trace of makeup on her heart shaped face, but she has dyed her hair a shocking shade of green. Her messy pony tail looks like a floppy plant.

  
“Nervous?” Connor admits. Though he has spent more and more time with Simon at the refugee center, sharing a living space will be a new chapter of their relationship. Eri tuts and pats his shoulder.

  
“Do you think Hank will be okay?” Connor wants to know for the fifteenths time and steps out of her reach.

  
“Connor, we’ve been over this. It’s a seven minute walk to his house. He’ll be fine.” And maybe because his frown doesn’t disappear she adds: “You’ll be fine too.”   
“Okay.” He lets out a breath. “We should get going.”

  
“Don’t worry.” She says. Eri stretches on her tiptoes and brushes a kiss against his cheek, before they walk around the car to start their journey. Hank’s house looks nice in the rear view mirror, the light of summer makes it appear newer than it actually is. Connor looks away, closes his eyes, takes a deep breath and focuses on the feeling of the hot sun on his face. Eri is right, everything is turning out just fine.

  
Connor has to smile, when they find Simon already waiting for them inside the parking lot.

  
“Hey.” Simon says and places a casual kiss on Connor’s lips.

  
“What are you doing here? I thought Tamara and Pedro wanted to go to the museum?” Connor wants to know. He gives Eri a questioning look, when she lets out a snort.

  
“What did you do?” Connor asks.

  
“Change of plans, boys.” She says and claps Simon and Connor on the back.

  
“Apparently there’s going to be a party. I was forced to take the kids with me.” Simon says. “North brought a cake for them and Hank, when she picked him up from his AA meeting.” Connor makes a face, when the truth of the deceit dawns on him.

  
“I’m not exactly the party type.” Connor says. Eri makes a gagging sound.

  
“We know. You’re Simon’s type, so please keep moving. You don’t have to look so offended. You’re the most introverted people I know.” Eri exclaims and pushes them forward.

  
“Let’s get your stuff later. I wanna party.” She says and squeals. Simon and Connor exchange a worried look. Connor takes Simon’s hand and drags him along, when they make their way upstairs. If they have to suffer though this it will be together.

  
“Good to see you, boy.” Hank is the first to great him, when they made it through the door.

  
“Hank, I just saw you yesterday.” Connor says, but can’t keep himself from grinning. Everyone is here. Alpha/6 is engaged in a conversation with North, their laughter rings through the apartment, while North is listening intently. The kids (who are very much on their way into adulthood, but Simon can’t stop from referring to them any other way, Connor knows) are taking care of slicing the cake. North and Markus must have set this up. There’s even a atrocious welcoming banner pinned over the otherwise blank walls of the flat.

  
“You shouldn’t have.” Simon tells Markus and North, after they exchanged greetings.

  
“Ah, but we know you two idiots live for that kind of shit.” Someone calls over. Connor turns his head. Gavin Reed is standing in the hallway like he owns the place. Behind his back David looks like he’d rather be anywhere else but here.

  
“What’s with the sour face?” Hank jabs at David. He loves to make fun of the two RK models. He claps David on the back, when he steps through the door. “You’re both hopeless.” Hank says with a fond look at the lookalike androids.

  
“What are you doing here?” Eri asks Reed with raised brows.

  
“He drove me here.” Reed says and points an accusatory finger at his partner. Connor takes personal pride into having set David up at the precinct. It’s the thing they were built to do, no matter how much detective Reed likes to complain about the two RKs.

  
“I heard there was cake?” Reed elaborates and David rolls his eyes.

  
“Excuses, excuses.” North clicks her tongue, but shows Reed the way.

  
After a while Connor finds himself standing alone. He takes his time to look at his friends and family. The lines have started to blur over the last months and labels no longer so easily apply. What’s more important is the meaning behind the words. He smiles, his gums showing, when Hank walks over with a glass of orange juice cradled in his hands.

  
“So what do ya think, Connor. You like the new place?”

  
“Even more than the company that’s currently clogging it up. I was actually looking forward to have some peace and quiet with Simon.”

  
“Nah, you know you love it.” Hank disagrees.

  
“I really do.” He admits. His sober tone makes Hank straighten up. For seven seconds they don’t say anything. Their gazes mesmerized by the chatter of the people around them.

  
“Who would have thought you and I would ever be able to fill a whole apartment with people we give a damn about. A year ago things still sucked. But now-” Hank lets out a sigh, “Well, we did good. Makes me wonder about the future, you know?” Hank muses.

  
“I’m looking forward to it.” Connor says, as Simon comes over and puts an arm around his side.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are and what a ride it has been!  
> This has been the first finished (longer) piece of writing in a while, so it was especially good to see this fic shape up and find its conclusion. Connor gave me some trouble here and there. I didn't want him to be too human, and on the other hand, I didn't want him to lose the humanity he had acquired in the game, as he went through all the nitty gritty things I pulled him, Simon, Hank and Markus through. He deserved to be happy, though he also needed to learn a bit more about what it means to be alive.   
> How did you like the new elements? Did you want CyberCorp to burn to the ground? Did you feel pity or anger when it came to the Apex1s? Did you wish Flash's story to have a happy ending? What were your thoughts about David/RK900? Where do you think Connor and Simon will go after this?   
> I am grateful for everyone that is still sticking around. If you liked this (or if you didn't) let me know through the comments. I'd love to hear what you think about the story.   
> I can't thank you enough for leaving kudos and comments. It means a lot to me to know that my writing doesn't totally suck. 
> 
> This fic was more or less a test. I wanted to see if I could pull something like this off. The next big thing on my list is writing an actual book. If you are interested in SciFi, robots, people lost in space and what it means to be human in a dehumanized society... drop in and check out my social media for updates.   
> Maybe we'll see/read each other again,   
> This is InsomniasShadow/G. D. Angier signing off. 
> 
> Tumblr, Instagram, Printerest @TheUnwrittenOnes   
> or theunwrittenones.squarespace .com


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